Review of current research on chitosan as a raw material in three-dimensional printing technology in biomedical applications

Three-dimensional (3D) biomaterial manufacturing strategies show an extraordinary driving force for the development of innovative solutions in the biomedical sector, including drug delivery systems, disease modelling and tissue and organ engineering. Due to its remarkable and promising biological and structural properties, chitosan has been widely studied for decades in several potential applications in the biomedical field. However, tools in the form of 3D printers have created new possibilities for the production of chitosan models, implants and scaffolds for cell cultures that are much more precise than existing ones. The article presents current achievements related to the possibility of using chitosan to create new materials for 3D printing in the form of chitosan bioinks, filaments, resins and powders dedicated for bioprinting, fused deposition modelling, stereolithography/digital light processing and selective laser sintering methods, respectively.