Guru Jambheshwar University

of
Science and Technology, Hisar

SEMINAR REPORT ON HYBRID

PRINING
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my special
thanks of gratitude to my teacher MR.
AMBRISH PANDEY (CHAIRPERSON,DEPT OF
PRINTING TECHNOLOGY)who gave me the
golden opportunity to do this
wonderful project on the topic HYBRID
PRINTING, which also helped me in doing
a lot of Research and i came to know
about so many new things I am really
thankful to them.
Secondly i would also like to thank my
parents and friends who helped me a
lot in finalizing this project within
the limited time frame.
INTODUCTION TO HYBRID
PRINTING

❖Hybrid printing combining inkjet technology with

flexography can be used to add customer specific
information into the production of packaging and
print. However, in order to improve print quality,
a comprehensive understanding of the
mechanisms governing print quality is required.
In this work, inkjet printing using three aqueous
inkjet inks was performed on top of flexographic
printouts on four paper substrates. For
comparative reasons, inkjet printouts were made
on the four papers as well. The flexographic film
contained tone values ranging from 0 to 100% ink
coverage. Line width and print density of the
inkjet printouts were evaluated. It was found that
paper characteristics such as surface energy,
porosity, absorption coefficient and surface
roughness play an important role in defining the
final print quality. These findings are further
supported by micrograph images.
❖The rapid development in the field of inkjet
technology in recent years manifests itself as an
increase in inkjet printing speed and a narrowing
of the gap to the traditional printing technologies
in terms of print production speed (Kettle et al,
2010, Rehberger et al, 2009). This opens up new
market segments as producers of print products
find novel users of customized information. Inkjet
printing is a flexible, digital, nonimpact printing
method which can be integrated directly in the
production line or utilized in a subsequent print
production step (Viström 2008). Over the years,
paper media for high volume print production has
been developed and continuously improved to
suit traditional printing technologies such as
offset and flexography. Inkjet, with its inherent
prerequisites on the ink concerning low viscosity
and a suitable surface tension interval in order to
avoid clogging of the ink at the nozzles of the
print head and to certify stable jetting and drop
formation over time, concerns printing of ink with
a relatively large amount of carrier liquid and a
small amount of colorants as compared to the
traditional printing technologies.
❖This puts severe and contradictory constraints on
the media and the ink in the inkjet printing
process; the carrier liquid should rapidly vanish
from the surface to avoid color-to-color bleeding,
wicking, and coalescence of droplets. The
colorant, on the other hand, should stay close to
the surface in order to reproduce a large color
gamut volume, but at the same time exhibit good
durability towards mechanical wear, moisture
and light. Optimization of the paper surface
properties for more than one print technology is
not straightforward.

❖Here, the inkjet print quality on paper and on

flexography preprinted paper was evaluated.
Flexographic printing in conjunction with inkjet
printing gives the possibility to individualize
packaging print or to customize the print to the
target group. The work aims at improved
understanding of the mechanisms governing print
quality when combining flexographic printing and
inkjet printing.
 MEANING OF TERM HYBRID PRINTING

HYBRID PRINTING

‘’HYBRID” MEANS THE MIXTURE “PRINTING” MEANS TO PRINT

OF TWO TECHNOLOGIES OR SOMETHING ON ANY KIND OF
MULTIPLE TECHNIQUES SUBSTRATE

❖THEREFORE THE MEANING OF TERM “HYBRID

PRINTING” IS THE PROCESS OF PRINTING
WHICH INCLUDES TWO TECHNIQUES OR TWO
TECHNOLOGIES.

❖WE CAN ALSO SAY THAT IT IS THE MIXTURE OF

CONVENTIONAL PRINTING(IMPACT PRINTING)
AND NON- CONVENTIONAL PRINTING(NON-
IMPACT PRINTING) TECHNOLOGIES.
 Printing Technologies for Hybrid Printing

It is evident that every technology has its own special applications

which can be characterized by the run length, the quality of the print,
further processing options, cost structure and economic efficiency.
The diagram gives an overview of the
most important conventional printing technologies requiring a master
as well as non-impact technologies which operate without a master
and shows how so-called hybrid printing systems can be set up from a
combination of these technologies.1 Production on sheet or web
material using the relevant inks is possible. Sheet-fed printing systems
are generally characterized by a higher degree of format flexibility,
web-fed systems by a higher productivity. Printing is done on
different substrates such as uncoated and coated paper, cardboard and
also plastic film material. The different substrates require special inks
tailored to the printing process itself and to the use of the end product
(in- or outdoor, food packaging, etc.)
The highest print quality is
achievable with offset (with the exception of gravure printing), in
particular for multicolor images. High printing speed is possible
(sheet-fed up to around 4 m/s and web-fed up to 15 m/s) and the
printing plates are produced quickly and economically compared to
other technologies.
Flexographic printing technology is
especially suitable for printing with varying inks and ink/varnishing
systems particularly in high film thickness. High ink film thickness is
also applied with gravure and screen printing. Gravure printing is
however only of low importance in connection with hybrid printing
systems due to the expensive production of the printing plate/cylinder.
Rotary screen printing is preferred for very high ink layers with high
color density
NIP- printing technologies, such as ink
jet and electrophotography, make it possible to print a variable image
page per page but in general at a lower print quality and higher cost
per page than with offset or gravure printing.
The combination of various printing technologies can bring about
very interesting production options with both a high degree of
economy for the printing company and benefit to the customer. Figure
1 also shows how technologies can be combined with hybrid systems,
merging conventional technologies, NIP-technologies or conventional
with NIP.
When using hybrid printing systems the
characteristics of the printing substrates, ink acceptance, print quality
expectations and paper transport are of particular importance. The
combined printing technologies have to fulfill requirements and must
be well suited to each other. The type of drying and fixing process
used to attach the ink to the substrate largely determines the sequence
of printing. Chemical and physical reactions of the inks with each
other (e.g. decomposing or non-wetting) must also be taken into
consideration. Furthermore the design of high economic print systems
are determined by the maximum and reasonable printing speeds of the
respective print technologies. From an economic efficiency point of
view, a very fast system should not be combined with a slow one. The
requirement to print with variable speed, for instance in case of
feeding difficult paper, might reduce the variety of combinations. In
table 1 the most relevant properties of print technologies are shown
for building up hybrid systems.
 TWO TYPES OF HYBRID PRINTING

❖ THERE ARE BASICALLY TWO TYPES OF HYBRID

PRINTING TECHNOLOGIES

1. COMBINATION OF CONVENTIONAL PRINTING

TECHNOGIES ie. IMPACT PRINTING.
2. COMBINATION OF NON- IMPACT
PRINTINGTECHNOLOGY.
3. COMBINATION OF CONVENTIONAL AND NON
CONVENTIONAL PRINTING TECHNOLOGIES
ie.IMAPACT AND NON-IMPACT PRINTING

Combination of Conventional Technologies

1. Multicolor sheet-fed offset press with coating unit as a hybrid

printing system combining offset and flexographic printing
DIAGRAM
 Within conventional printing technologies, hybrid systems that
combine offset and flexographic printing, such as sheet-fed
offset presses are already well-known. The latter have an
attached coating unit for printing on the whole surface or partial
(spot coating) application of a coating onto a high-quality
multicolor print produced in the same press.1 With these
systems it is also possible to produce colored imprints using a
flexographic plate, for instance, with special effect coatings or
special colors (spot color). The coating or varnishing unit
consists of a plate cylinder, a chambered doctor blade inking
unit and an impression cylinder. The varnish is laid on top of the
offset ink, which is not yet dry. In this example, drying of ink
and varnish (or special effect inks) is done by an IR-dryer.

2. Hybrid printing system for label printing combining

flexography, offset and screen, as well as letterpress for hot-foil
stamping/embossing

Another example of the combination of conventional printing

technologies is demonstrated in figure 3, a label printing press with
flexo and screen printing units, and an additional unit for hot-foil
stamping.1 UV-dryers are installed between all units to cure the UV-
ink. Wet-on-wet printing, that is without intermediate drying, is not
possible in multicolor flexo/screen (like in offset). The different
printing units are designed in such a way that they can be changed
according to the special print job requirements.
 Combination of NIP-Technologies

❖ Hybrid printing system combining the NIPtechnologies of

electrophotography (single-color printing) with ink jet
imprinting system for multicolor (spot color) imprints (InfoPrint
4000/Info Print Highlight Color, IBM/Accent Color Sciences)

FIGURE

Figure shows a system where electrophotography, for high speed

monochrome printing, has been combined with an ink jet printer for
imprinting additional information in spot colors.1,6 The electrophoto-
graphic printer is the main system and can print a page-wide image.
The ink jet unit (piezo drop-on-demand, using hot-melt ink) for
imprinting spot colors can only print a width of around one inch per
head. Several print heads (e.g. eight) can be positioned across the
width of the web and each head can print with a different color.
Highlighting of names and results in bills or lists is done with this
printer. It is fast, up to around 1 m/s (200 fpm, 240 dpi), and the
quality of the printed image/text is acceptable. A multicolor
electrophotographic system capable of this high speed and also
suitable for this type of work (black and one or two spot colors) is not
yet available for cost reasons.

Combination of Conventional and NIP-Technology

Combining conventional offset or flexo

with a NIPtechnology is shown in figures 5 and 6. Offset and ink jet
printing are shown in figure 5 are similar to the demonstration by
Heidelberg as a technology/concept study at Drupa 2000 (at Drupa
with a single color Quickmaster). The high quality fixed image is
printed on the QM DI 46-4, a 4-color offset press with direct imaging
technology, and the imprinting,1,8-11 which adds variable
information to the offset print with one color, is done over the
complete sheet width with ink jet. At full speed, 10000 A3-
sheets/hour are printed. The ink jet imprinting unit is based on the
piezo technology from Spectra and images with 7680 independently
addressable nozzles (325 mm/12.8” wide) at a resolution of 600 dpi
and 38 kHz at full speed (1.6 m/s, 320 fpm).12 At the end of the
imprinting unit a UV-dryer is installed to cure the UV-offset ink as
well as the UV-ink jet ink. Only one dryer is needed to dry/cure the
images of both printing units simultaneously. After passing through
the UVdryer the inks are completely dry and the print is ready to ship
or for additional finishing processes. Since the ink jet print head has a
short distance (about 1 mm) – no contact - to the paper surface with
the wet offset ink, it is possible to install the imprinting unit after
offset printing. With sheet-fed printing it is preferable to print the
fixed image first and then at the end of the paper travel the variable
image. The workflow for reprinting sheets in the event of print
interruptions (e.g. paper misfeed) is easier to handle. (In
electrophotography the photoconducting surface or the intermediate
carrier has contact to the substrate; the imprinting unit therefore has to
be installed before offset printing or the offset ink must be dried in
advance.)

❖ Digital hybrid printing system using the combination of offset

and ink jet technology (Heidelberg)
FIGURE

The hybrid printing system as shown in

figure is modular in design (the imprinting unit is not rigidly
incorporated in the computer to press offset system). This offers
benefits with regard to the flexibility of the printing system and the
modular structure of different model variants. The complete print job
can be processed with regard to its fixed and variable image content
using digital job definition. Digital in-line imaging of the master prior
to print start is used for the fixed image portions, and real-time
imaging during printing is used for the variable page content (a
detailed description of the hybrid system and the design of the print
head is given in the presentation of Yong Zhou/Clemens Rensch;
Applications of Page Wide Piezo Ink Jet Printing to Commercial and
Industrial Market.

❖ Hybrid printing system: Multicolor offset printing press with ink

jet imprinting system for numbering, personalization, addressing
and segmentation of the job (Domino/Heidelberg

FIGURE
 An early installation of an imprinting system
based on continuous ink jet print heads and used especially for
numbering and personalization is shown in figure 6.1 Eight separate
print heads (with multi-deflection continuous ink jet technology) are
spread over the length of the last impression cylinder of the offset
press. Only columns can be printed since there is no overlap of the
heads.

❖ Hybrid printing system combining offset printing for multicolor

printing with NIP-technology for the imprinting unit to produce
partly variable contents from sheet to sheet (Heidelberg)

FIGURE

Figure shows a possible design of an electrophotographic printing unit

installed in a larger format sheet-fed offset press. The dryer of the
offset ink (UV-curing ink) is positioned downstream of the offset
units. Instead of an electrophotographic system it is of course possible
to install a magnetographic, ionographic or ink jet system.
 ❖ Digital label printing system with NIP-multicolor printing
system (electrophotography with liquid toner; Omnius, Indigo),
flexographic printing, and finishing equipment for coating,
laminating, and die-cutting (DO 330, Gallus/Indigo)

FIGURE

The combination of an
electrophotographic system based on liquid toner with flexographic
printing units in a web-fed label printing system is shown in figure 8.
The electrophotographic printer in front of the flexo units can print
variable multicolor images. The web is fed intermittently (because the
installed electro-photographic printing system is a multipass system,
needing 4 cylinder revolutions for the multicolor print1 ). The flexo
units have to “wait” (turn without contacting the web) for the next
variable image. The toner image is fixed on the web before it enters
the flexo unit.
 ❖ Digital hybrid printing system for web-fed printing for the
production of segmented, personalized/individualized print
media

FIGURE

Figure shows the

components of a hybrid printing system for the production of print
media by web-fed offset. A direct imaging imprinting unit for non
stop plate change (segmenting the job) is positioned in front of the
multicolor offset printing system (printing identical images). The
imprinting system with ink jet (non-contact to the web) for individual
text or personalization is integrated after conventional printing.13
Drying of the ink can take place after all printing processes.
 ADVANTAGES OF HYBRID PRINTERS

1) Advanced Features - Hybrid printing machines combine a suite of

advanced features that enable businesses to customise their print runs.
These include:
• Advanced User Interface with touch screen operation
• Remote operation with print settings that can be programmed in
advance and activated at the touch of a button
• Mono and four colour options
• The ability to choose web widths
• Inbuilt UV drying system
• Printing and over varnish facilities
• Uni-coloured rotary flexo head to allow pre-coating
• In line systems for converting and finishing

2) Robust Construction - As you can see, some of these features are

classic strengths of digital printing, whereas others are more
commonly associated with flexo-printing. Hybrid presses have the
same robust structure as flexo-presses, capable of integrating a variety
of optional features and upgrades within a compact print housing.
They are cheap to run and easy to maintain. At the same time, Hybrid
presses are fully digital machines – so you can easily integrate them
with your IT infrastructure for a seamless transition between design,
layout and print.

3) Greater flexibility – Hybrid presses give label printing businesses

the ability to cater for a wide range of applications. They have
expanded the digital colour gamut to include colours that lie outside
the CMYK range. With hybrid printing technology, it is possible to
add special inks to the production line or elevating the appearance of
a label. Hybrid printing provides the flexibility to convert inline,
decorate, and finish a product in a single pass.

4) Ease out complex jobs - Hybrid machines support ‘on the fly’
changes in between complex jobs with full variable data imaging
facilities. Production and printing with hybrid technology
significantly reduces operational, as well as digital consumable costs.
This cost reduction is achieved by facilitating heavy coverage for
filling areas with solid colours and digital processing for composite
images.

5) Increased productivity - One of the most visible benefits of hybrid

technology is increased production speed. Hybrid printing enables
more work to be done in a shorter time span. Increased speed is also
facilitated by perfect registration from print to cut. Most of the tasks;
including labelling, finishing, coating, packaging, and cutting are
accomplished automatically. As a result, the staffing cost involved on
each print run is substantially reduced. The newer machines are also
less time intensive and require fewer skills to operate.
Hybrid machines can also handle more
jobs in less time. As a result, you can handle several jobs at the same
time and cater to a wider range of customers. This gives you the
flexibility to take on a larger number of small print runs, or cut your
production costs on large runs.
 DISADVANTAGES OF HYPRID PRINTING

• Print quality (physical resolution, dot size and colour space) – there
are limitations on gradations down to zero, small fonts, symbols
(below 4pt) and fine lines.

• Register accuracy – this is critical for covering as large a Pantone

colour space as possible with the available CMYK process colours
and GOV colour space enlargement colours.

• Production speed (as independent of resolution and colour space as

possible)

• System availability due to high maintenance needs, additional

automated calibration and cleaning cycles and insufficient system
stability

• Choice of substrates (e.g. shrink sleeves, inmold, textured paper)

• Inks and toner properties (adhesion & abrasion, low migration, light-
fastness, etc.)

• There are currently very few integrated inline solutions that make it
possible to progress from substrate to finished label in a single
production run
MARKET SHARE AND FUTURE GROWTH OF
HYBRID PRINTING

According to the IT Strategies consulting house, digital printing of

self-adhesive labels is the fastest-growing technology in the label
printing industry.

Making up just 3% of total print volumes in 2013, the market for

digitally printed labels is still relatively small. However, it is growing
fast (by some 15-20% per year), and with a total production value of
around 9%, it already offers highly attractive margins. IT Strategies
predicts that digital printing is set to be a particularly important
alternative to flexographic printing, with 10% of all of today’s
flexographic jobs being produced digitally in the medium term. For
label printers aiming to provide customers with the full spectrum of
applications over the entire product life cycle of a particular label, it
will therefore be necessary to consider offering digital solutions for
short runs and processing industrially variable data (bar codes, QR
codes, serial numbers, etc.).

Given that less than 15% of all label printers worldwide have a digital
printing system, many companies are still deliberating over which to
invest in. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that it is so difficult
to gain an overview of this market. At Labelexpo 2013, some 30
manufacturers exhibited over 55 new printing systems.
APPLICATION AND SCOPE OF HYBRID
PRINTING

❖BIO-PRINTER(PRINTING OF TISSUES AND

CARTILAGE)

Bioprinting is an emerging
technique used to fabricate viable, 3D tissue constructs
through the precise deposition of cells and hydrogels in a
layer-by-layer fashion. Despite the ability to mimic the native
properties of tissue, printed 3D constructs that are composed
of naturally-derived biomaterials still lack structural integrity
and adequate mechanical properties for use in vivo, thus
limiting their development for use in load-bearing tissue
engineering applications, such as cartilage. Fabrication of
viable constructs using a novel multi-head deposition system
provides the ability to combine synthetic polymers, which
have higher mechanical strength than natural materials, with
the favorable environment for cell growth provided by
traditional naturally-derived hydrogels. However, the
complexity and high cost associated with constructing the
required robotic system hamper the widespread application of
this approach. Moreover, the scaffolds fabricated by these
robotic systems often lack flexibility, which further restrict
their applications. To address these limitations, advanced
fabrication techniques are necessary to generate complex
constructs with controlled architectures and adequate
mechanical properties. In this study, we describe the
construction of a hybrid inkjet printing/electrospinning system
that can be used to fabricate viable tissues for cartilage tissue
engineering applications. Electrospinning of polycaprolactone
fibers was alternated with inkjet printing of rabbit elastic
chondrocytes suspended in a fibrin–collagen hydrogel in order
to fabricate a five-layer tissue construct of 1 mm thickness.
The chondrocytes survived within the printed hybrid construct
with more than 80% viability one week after printing. In
addition, the cells proliferated and maintained their basic
biological properties within the printed layered constructs.
Furthermore, the fabricated constructs formed cartilage-like
tissues both in vitro and in vivo as evidenced by the deposition
of type II collagen and glycosaminoglycans. Moreover, the
printed hybrid scaffolds demonstrated enhanced mechanical
properties compared to printed alginate or fibrin–collagen gels
alone. This study demonstrates the feasibility of constructing
a hybrid inkjet printing system using off-the-shelf components
to produce cartilage constructs with improved biological and
mechanical properties.
Naturally-derived hydrogels such as
collagen, fibrin and elastin have advanced the field of
biomaterials in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine
because their composition and structure resembles that of
native tissue. Organ/tissue printing using inkjet technology is
evolving into a practical method to fabricate viable 3D tissue
constructs and has found widespread applications in the field
of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The
bioprinting approach often utilizes naturally-derived
hydrogels as cell-printing solutions to construct tissues in
layer-by-layer fashion due to their superior biocompatibility
and low toxicity on the cells. However, the low to moderate
mechanical properties of these hydrogels hinder their utility in
load-bearing tissue engineering applications, such as cartilage,
because they are unable to provide proper 3D structural
integrity during surgical procedures and the regenerative
process.
Fabrication methods such as solid free
form technology, which is based on computer-aided
design/computer-aided manufacturing, has been employed to
fabricate 3D scaffolds. Despite its ability to control the
scaffold porosity, the scaffold, which often is made of a
synthetic polymer, does not provide the proper affinitive
environment to the cells due to the polymer hydrophobicity
properties. Multi-head deposition systems (MHDS) offer the
ability to fabricate hybrid scaffolds using both synthetic
polymers and hydrogel materials. The hybrid scaffold
provides a favorable environment within the hydrogel for the
cells to grow and can possess adequate mechanical properties
that can be altered depending on the synthetic polymer used
during fabrication. Recently, MHDS was employed to
fabricate hybrid scaffolds using synthetic polymers such as
PCL and polyglycolic acid incorporated within hydrogels
such as alginate, gelatin, and hyaluronic acid as a cell-printing
solution. While the ability to precisely deposit cells and
materials has been well-established, most robotic precision
deposition machines are often complex, expensive to
manufacture and require special skills to operate. By
combining synthetic polymers and natural hydrogels, these
systems can offer a hybrid scaffold system, but the main
frame of the scaffold, composed of bulk synthetic polymers, is
very rigid and lack of flexibility, which might not be suitable
for cartilage tissue engineering. Deposition of these
components can also be achieved by inkjet printing system
using off-the-shelf components and provides a platform in
which multiple cell types can be deposited into a construct.
This technique can provide many of the similar functions as a
robotic deposition system but can be effectively utilized with
little specialized equipment. Inkjet technology has been used
in many applications to produce high density patterns of DNA
for microarrays, microdepositions of proteins for enzyme
assays and high density arrays of bacterial colonies. The
technique has also been applied to high-throughput patterning
of mammalian cells, including Chinese hamster ovary cells
and hippocampal cells. Even more recently, it has been shown
that the environmental conditions generated during the
printing process, such as heat and shear stress, can be used to
perform high-throughput transfection of living cells. These
experiments support the use of inkjet bioprinting as a low cost
fabrication method and provide a glimpse of its future
potential.
We hypothesized that these mechanical
limitations associated with printed hydrogel constructs could
be overcome by using inkjet printing techniques in
conjunction with electrospinning, which is another fabrication
technique that can create nanofibrous scaffolds of synthetic
polymer. By combining flexible mats of electrospun synthetic
polymer with traditional inkjet printing in a layer-by-layer
fashion, functional tissue constructs with enhanced
mechanical properties could be fabricated. In this study, we
first determined whether electrospinning could be employed
in conjunction with inkjet-based cell printing to produce
constructs with enhanced mechanical properties that would be
suitable for cartilage tissue engineering in a proof-of-concept
design. We then evaluated the functionality of the resulting
constructs in terms of four parameters: cell survival,
maintenance of the layered structure, mechanical properties,
and formation of cartilage-specific extracellular matrix.
Generation of organized layered cartilage constructs with
improved biological and mechanical properties would have
numerous applications clinically. In particular, to meet the
depth-dependent cellular and matrix properties properties of
articular cartilage, biomimetic zonal cartilage repair and
regeneration using modular hydrogel systems has been
envisioned. Our hybrid method allows for control over
construct organization and might have potential to these
applications involving complex zonal properties to tissue-
engineered constructs for cartilage repair.

Construction of the hybrid printing system

To build cartilage constructs, we
developed a novel hybrid printing system by incorporating an
electrospinning apparatus into an inkjet printing platform.
Figures (A) and (B) show the schematic drawing of this
hybrid printing system and the actual hybrid printing system
after construction, respectively.
 FIGURE

(A) Schematic representation of the hybrid printing system shows the

inkjet printhead and the electrospinning printhead. (B) The actual
prototype of the hybrid printing system after construction.

The inkjet printing platform is composed of a customized XYZ plotter

driven by step motors. The printhead was equipped with a dc solenoid
inkjet valve (Offshore Solutions Inc, Beaverton, OR). Reservoirs for
loading the cell suspension to be printed were connected to the inkjet
valve. The cell-printing solution was supplied to the inkjet valve from
the reservoirs using pressurized air. The printhead was mounted over
a XYZ plotter platform to allow deposition of cells onto the scaffold
generated by electrospinning. The XYZ plotter was positioned under
the printhead via a customized controller. The controller acquires the
positioning information from custom software built on the .NET
Framework 2.0 (Microsoft Corp, Redmond, WA). The software
converts the image of the target to a special four byte protocol, which
is used to activate a specific inkjet valve and coordinate X–Y–Z
position.
In this hybrid system, the electrospinning apparatus is used to
generate a polymeric fiber-based scaffold. An electrospinning head, in
tandem with the inkjet head, was also mounted over the XYZ plotter.
The power supply, which is used to provide a high voltage field for
electrospinning, was modulated by the same customized controller.
To prevent the potential adverse effects of static discharge on the
logic circuitry of the customized controller, the controller was
conductively isolated from the high voltage power supply through
fiber optics.

EXAMPLE OF SOME BODY TISSUES PRINTED

USIND HYBRID PRINTING

(A) Macroscopic view of the printed construct in culture media, scale

bar 2 cm.
(B) Schematic representation of the five-layer printed constructs of
PCL and chondrocytes.
(C) Cross-sectional SEM at 200× magnification shows the layered
structure of the scaffold. PCL can be seen at the left and right with
cells and collagen in the middle, scale bar 100 µm.
(D) 4000× magnification showing the microstructure of the PCL,
scale bar 10 µm.
(E) 500× magnification shows the chondrocytes attaching to the
collagen matrix, scale bar 10 µm.
 The printed hybrid constructs produced
using our system had adequate mechanical integrity to maintain the
structure of the five printed layers as shown in figures.Microstructural
analysis of the printed hybrid constructs using SEM demonstrated the
presence of intact layers of cell/collagen matrix between the sheets of
PCL as shown in figure . Measurements of the electrospun fibers
showed an average fiber diameter of 422 ± 62 nm and a pore size
smaller than 5 µm. The microstructure of the PCL at high
magnification appeared fibrous, and occasional beads were present .
Formation of beads occurs when the extruded polymer fails to form
fibers and instead clusters on the collection screen. This phenomenon
is directly related to the viscosity and surface tension of the polymer
solution and is inversely related to the charge density of the solution.
However, this can be avoided by increasing the concentration of
polymer in the solution and slowing the flow rate of the solution
through the needle tip. Beading can be controlled to generate
structures with porous membranes and cups. Thus, this technique may
be used to finely tune the scaffold architecture for different tissue
types.