AccScience Publishing / IJB / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/IJB025220222
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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Investigation of humidity-driven swelling– shrinking behavior of filaments in material extrusion of medical-grade biodegradable hydrogel

Kaicheng Yu1,2† ,  Yifeng Yao1,2† ,  Qiang Gao1,2* ,  Le Xu1,2 ,  Wei Zhang3 ,  Min Zhu4 ,  Peng Zhang1,2 ,  Swee Leong Sing5* ,  Lihua Lu1,2*
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1 School of Mechatronics Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China
2 Chongqing Research Institute of HIT, Chongqing, China
3 Key Laboratory of Data Analytics and Optimization for Smart Industry, Northeastern University, Shenyang, Liaoning, China
4 School of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China
5 Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Design and Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore
†These authors contributed equally to this work.
IJB, 025220222 https://doi.org/10.36922/IJB025220222
Received: 27 May 2025 | Accepted: 29 June 2025 | Published online: 30 June 2025
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in 3D Bioprinting)
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Material extrusion using medical-grade biodegradable hydrogel demonstrates significant potential for manufacturing biocompatible scaffolds in regenerative medicine. However, unpredictable geometric variations in the fabricated models, such as swelling or shrinking, impede the development of complex three-dimensional (3D) hydrogel architectures for in vitro-functionalized tissues and organs. A primary cause of structural deformation, such as wrinkling or even collapse, is improper humidity control during the 3D printing process. Therefore, there is a need to investigate the swelling–shrinking behavior of hydrogels under varying ambient humidity and to determine optimal humidity levels for the printing process. This study established a thermal–humidity–multiphase flow coupling field simulation model to numerically investigate the humidity-driven swelling–shrinking behavior of hydrogel filaments. The optimal 3D printing humidity levels were determined for hydrogel filaments with diameters of 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4 mm, which were found to be 90, 80, and 60%, respectively. Using these humidity settings, several structures were fabricated, demonstrating moderated moisture loss of 3D architecture. Notably, a human ear model was successfully printed, achieving an effective size of 20 mm (length) × 10 mm (width) × 10 mm (height). Our research can benefit the future development in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

Graphical abstract
Keywords
3D printing
Coupling field simulation
Humidity control
Medical hydrogel
Funding
The authors deeply acknowledge the financial support from the Key Research and Development Plan Project of Heilongjiang Province (grant no. 2022ZX02C22); the Science and Technology Innovation Talent Project on Manufacturing Industry of Harbin (grant no. 2023HBRCGD011, 2022CXRCGD029); the Interdisciplinary Research Foundation of HIT (grant no. IR2021223); and the Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing (grant no. CSTB2023NSCQ-MSX0822).
Conflict of interest
Dr. Swee Leong Sing serves as the Editorial Board Member of the journal, but did not in any way involve in the editorial and peer-review process conducted for this paper, directly or indirectly. Other authors declare they have no competing interests.
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International Journal of Bioprinting, Electronic ISSN: 2424-8002 Print ISSN: 2424-7723, Published by AccScience Publishing
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