Table 2.
Characteristics | Challenges | |
---|---|---|
Method | Droplets of liquid binder bind the particles of the powder bed layer[10-12]. The drug can be found in the ink or in the powder bed[10]. BJ is a simple, versatile, low-cost and high-speed process that provides the personalized drug delivery system as well as customizing the composition and properties of drug-eluting implants[11,16]. The physicochemical properties of the dosage forms, and the drug-release profiles could be adjusted using different polymers and/or ratios between the bulk material, API (s), binding agents, and other excipients[16]. |
Pre-processing of the powdered materials is necessary to ensure proper distribution of the particle size and flow capacity of the powder for uniform filling of the power bed[16]. Clogging of the print head can occur during printing of non-homogeneous binder solutions[11,16]. The porosity of products is poorly controllable[16]. One risk in the process is the inconsistency or less homogeneity between the layers, which can be controlled by mediating the temperature and drying time between layers or jetting rate[11,16]. |
Material | The process works with ambient temperature that is suitable for thermolabile drugs and excipients[16]. | The availability of suitable non-toxic solvents to increase the capacity of the binder solution is limited[16]. |
Quality | BJ has lower printing resolution and poorer surface quality that can result in imprecise printing and low dimensional tolerance, compared to other AM processes[11,16]. | This could be improved by the additional post-processing[16]. |