3D Printing of Shrimp Derived Chitosan with HAp as a Bio-Composite Scaffold

India is the world’s 3rd largest shrimp producer at the same stint the shrimp industry generates 40%–70% waste of the catch volume. In this research, chitosan from shrimp (Penaeus indicus) waste was extracted at 75% degree of deacetylation and was brought down to powder form. Parallelly, a wet chemical precipitation method was adopted to produce hydroxyapatite suspension. The Chitosan powders were blended with the HAp suspension and finally ball milled to achieve composite powders of particle size 0.020 mm having mesoporous nature (3.17 nm) when quantified with BJH model. The scaffold was designed considering four design models namely the hollow cube, dumbbell, dual cone and honeycomb models with 62–67% of porosity. Post FE simulation analysis and design optimization using Pugh’s matrix revealed that the honeycomb model was superior considering the mass (g), porosity (%), compressive stress (MPa) and the level of complexity in mesh array. The composite powders were preheated up to 200°C and then the laser with spot of 0.5 mm width sinters the composite powder forming a scaffold as per design using the Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) process. The final part was subjected to cell viability assay using MG63 osteoblast cell line resulted in an increased cell level on the sixth day.