Syringe Extruder

A special add-on for the open-source 3D printer LulzBot® was developed in our laboratory. It enables the device to build three-dimensional structures with liquid or gel-like biological materials, such as gelatin. These bio-materials can be enriched with live biological cells to build scaffolds for tissue engineering or to conduct experiments to simulate biological matrices.

The extruder is based on a specially designed, light-weight syringe pump. It can be mounted directly in place of the tool head of the 3D printer. The parametric design of the device enables the adaption of the dimensions to various syringe sizes with different diameters and volumes.