3D printing in bone now possible

The insanely creative team over at Open3DP have amazed us yet again. Now they have been able to 3D print in bone. For a project with Juliana Meira do Valle and Michael Storey the team developed a way to create a bone mixture that can be 3D printed. The mixture consists of Powdered Bone Meal, Powdered Sugar, MaltoDextrin and urea formaldehyde resin is used as a binder. The team found out that you buy your very own food safe powdered bown meal at your local health or vitamin store, by far the most worrying thing I”ve learned today. The recipe should you want to 3D print your own bone at home:

Powdered Bone Meal  — 4-5 parts by weight.
UF plastic resin glue   —  1 part by weight.

After five weeks of testing the team was sucessfully able to 3D print the bone 3D prints needed for the project. This is still an early test and by no means does this mean you can take your 3D printer with you on your next ski vacation, just in case. But, it is another piece of groundbreaking work by the Open3DP team at the Solheim Lab. You can read more here.