3D Printing of Biopolymer-Based Scaffolds for Bone Tissue Engineering: Materials, Fabrication, and Translational Strategies

Bone defects from trauma, tumour resection, infection, and degenerative disease remain a major clinical burden, and autografts face limitations of supply and donor-site morbidity. Three-dimensional (3D) printing offers a route to patient-specific, architecturally defined bone scaffolds, while biopolymers from natural sources provide biodegradability, biocompatibility, and extracellular matrix-mimicking cues consistent with sustainable, green biomaterials science. This review synthesises recent progress in 3D printing of biopolymer-based scaffolds for bone tissue engineering. We first examine the principal feedstocks-alginate, gelatin and gelatin methacryloyl, collagen, chitosan, silk fibroin, cellulose, and microbial polyesters-and their preparation, crosslinking chemistry, and printability. We then compare extrusion, light-based, and indirect printing technologies and the process-property relationships governing resolution, mechanical competence, and cell viability. Composite and functionalisation strategies, including biopolymer-bioceramic hybrids and controlled delivery of growth factors and antimicrobial agents, are analysed as routes to osteoinduction, vascularisation, and infection control. Finally, we evaluate translational performance in preclinical models and outline central challenges of vascularisation, mechanical-degradation matching, scalability, and regulatory standardisation. Biopolymer 3D printing is positioned as a ve rsatile, sustainable platform whose clinical maturation depends on integrated material, structural, and biological design.