Comparative Evaluation of 3D Filaments Used in Additive Manufacturing of Biomedical Tools; Using Fuzzy PROMETHEE

The additive manufacturing technique is currently revolutionizing the healthcare industry. This technology utilizes modern approaches to develop advanced medical equipment and artificial body tissues. The three-dimensional (3D) filament is regarded as one of the major components of the 3D printing technique. These filaments have peculiar characters to print different objects. Similarly, hospital and biomedical tools, such as syringes, catheters, insulin pens, and surgical gloves, for instance, are produced using non-biodegradable plastics, which could be toxic and unsafe to the environment. Therefore, there is a need to produce these biomedical tools using safe and environmentally friendly filaments. The aim of this study is to evaluate and compare the major 3D filaments used in fused deposition modeling, using a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) technique called the fuzzy preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluations (PROMETHEE). The considered 3D printing filaments in this study were evaluated based on parameters such as strength, warp, flexibility, heat resistance, biodegradability, average cost, resistance to UV, food safety, print temperature, speed, and ease of print. The result indicated that PLA with a net flow of 0.0316 is the most preferred, favorable, and extensively used 3D printing filaments in additive manufacturing of biomedical tools based on applied parameters/set preference, selected criteria, and important weights allocated to the selected criteria. PC is second with a net flow of 0.0069. In contrast, TPE ranked least with a negative net flow result of −0.0327.