Indirect Additive Manufacturing: A Valid Approach to Modulate Sorption/Release Profile of Molecules from Chitosan Hydrogels

This work studied the influence of hydrogel’s physical properties (geometry and hierarchical roughness) on the in vitro sorption/release profiles of molecules. To achieve this goal, chitosan (CS) solutions were cast in 3D-printed (3DP) molds presenting intricate shapes (cubic and half-spherical with/without macro surface roughness) and further immersed in alkaline solutions of NaOH and NaCl. The resulting physically crosslinked hydrogels were mechanically stable in aqueous environments and successfully presented the shapes and geometries imparted by the 3DP molds. Sorption and release profiles were evaluated using methyl orange (MO) and paracetamol (PMOL) as model molecules, respectively. Results revealed that distinct MO sorption/PMOL release profiles were obtained according to the sample’s shape and presence/absence of hierarchical roughness. MO sorption capacity of CS samples presented both dependencies of hierarchical surface and geometry parameters. Hence, cubic samples without a hierarchical surface presented the highest (up to 1.2 × greater) dye removal capacity. Moreover, PMOL release measurements were more dependent on the surface area of hydrogels, where semi-spherical samples with hierarchical roughness presented the fastest (~1.13 × faster) drug delivery profiles. This work demonstrates that indirect 3DP (via fused filament fabrication (FFF) technology) could be a simple strategy to obtain hydrogels with distinct sorption/release profiles.