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REVIEW ARTICLE

Sustainable ALMA from seaweed for DLP printing

Merve Ilgar1 ,  Eylul Dila Carkci2 ,  Elif Emekdar2 ,  Oguzhan Gunduz3 ,  Roger Narayan4*
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1 Department of Chemistry, İstanbul University-Cerrahpasa, Avcılar, İstanbul , Türkiye
2 Department of Bioengineering, Yıldız Technical University, Esenler, İstanbul , Türkiye
3 Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Marmara University, Maltepe, İstanbul , Türkiye
4 Department of Biomedical Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina , United States of America
IJB, 026330354 https://doi.org/10.36922/IJB026330354
Received: 29 June 2026 | Revised: 10 August 2026 | Accepted: 19 August 2026 | Published online: 21 August 2026
© 2026 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

Alginate, which can be extracted from various brown seaweed species, is a sustainable biomaterial with several potential biomedical applications because of its biocompatibility and biodegradability. While alginate hydrogels are traditionally ionically crosslinked with divalent cations, this approach often produces hydrogels with low mechanical strength and poorly controlled degradation kinetics, limiting their suitability for biomedical applications. The chemical modification of alginate via methacrylation to produce alginate methacrylate (ALMA) allows the fabrication of photocrosslinkable hydrogels under ultraviolet (UV) light irradiation. This approach enables the fabrication of alginate-based hydrogels with superior physicochemical properties that can be tailored for specific biomedical areas. However, there is a relative lack of research related to the performance of ALMA bioinks in 3D printing using digital light processing (DLP). The research conducted to date indicates a connection between the choice of alginate source, methacrylation chemistry, and printing outcomes. This review directly addresses this topic by considering alginate extraction from brown seaweed, ALMA synthesis methods, and the biomedical applications of ALMA as a 3D hydrogel using DLP.  For this purpose, the focus has been on how each step in the process affects the performance of the materials used in final biomedical applications. The goal of this review is to provide researchers with a framework for optimizing ALMA-based bioinks for DLP-based biomedical fabrication.

Graphical abstract
Keywords
Brown seaweed
Alginate
Extraction methods
Bioink
Digital light processing
ALMA hydrogels
Funding
This work was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK) under Project No. 224M659.
Conflict of interest
The 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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