AccScience Publishing / MSAM / Volume 3 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.36922/msam.3125
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Developing a sustainable resin for 3D printing in coral restoration

Yukai Jia1 ,  Sherin Abdelrahman1 ,  Charlotte A.E. Hauser1*
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1 Laboratory for Nanomedicine, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia
MSAM 2024, 3(2), 3125 https://doi.org/10.36922/msam.3125
Submitted: 9 March 2024 | Accepted: 11 April 2024 | Published: 31 May 2024
© 2024 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

Coral reefs boast one of the planet’s most diversified ecosystems, serving as an essential source of food and revenue for millions of people while providing shelter to a wide variety of marine creatures. However, overfishing, pollution, climate change, and other factors collectively pose an escalating danger to coral reefs. Therefore, coral reef restoration efforts are urgently needed to save corals. In this study, we exploited 3D printing technology based on vat polymerization to fabricate artificial coral plugs, expediting the reef restoration process while minimizing labor costs. We have developed a scalable model through the photoinitiated polymerization of an eco-friendly resin composed of modified soybean oil and calcium carbonate which has the potential to significantly enhance global restoration efforts. Material characterization demonstrated that the printed scaffold was highly cross-linked. Based on cytotoxicity analysis, the printed scaffold exhibited excellent cell adhesion and proliferation characteristics. The coral microfragmentation experiment showed initial signs of coral settlement on the printed coral plugs. This work demonstrates that plant-based material and vat-polymerization-based 3D printing techniques hold promise for coral restoration.

Keywords
Coral restoration
3D printing
Sustainable resin
Calcium carbonate-based ink
Vat polymerization
Acrylated epoxidized soybean oil
Funding
This work was financially supported by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Editorial Disclosure

Charlotte A. E. Hauser 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.

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Materials Science in Additive Manufacturing, Electronic ISSN: 2810-9635 Published by AccScience Publishing
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