Abstract
Recent advances in three-dimensional (3D) printing technology has enabled to shape food in unique and complex 3D shapes. To showcase the capability of 3D food printing, chocolates have been commonly used as printing inks, and 3D printing based on hot-melt extrusion have been demonstrated to model 3D chocolate products. Although hot-melt extrusion of chocolates is simple, the printing requires precise control over the operating temperature in a narrow range. In this work, for the first time, we directly printed chocolate-based inks in its liquid phase using direct ink writing (DIW) 3D printer to model complex 3D shapes without temperature control. We termed this method as chocolate-based ink 3D printing (Ci3DP). The printing inks were prepared by mixing readily available chocolate syrup and paste with cocoa powders at 5 to 25 w/w% to achieve desired rheological properties. High concentrations of cocoa powders in the chocolate-based inks exhibited shear-thinning properties with viscosities ranging from 102 to 104 Pa.s; the inks also possessed finite yield stresses at rest. Rheology of the inks was analyzed by quantifying the degree of shear-thinning by fitting the experimental data of shear stress as a function of shear rate to Herschel-Bulkley model. We demonstrated fabrication of 3D models consisting of chocolate syrups and pastes mixed with the concentration of cocoa powders at 10 to 25 w/w%. The same method was extended to fabricate chocolate-based models consisting of multiple type of chocolate-based inks (e.g. semi-solid enclosure and liquid filling). The simplicity and flexibility of Ci3DP offer great potentials in fabricating complex chocolate-based products without temperature control.
Highlights
Recent advances in three-dimensional (3D) printing technology has enabled to shape food in unique and complex 3D shapes
We evaluated the printability of the chocolate-based inks in two terms: (1) rheological properties of the chocolate-based inks and (2) parameters of direct ink writing (DIW) 3D printing
We presented a unique and simple method of direct ink writing (DIW) to fabricate complex 3D structures using chocolate-based materials at room temperature
Summary
Recent advances in three-dimensional (3D) printing technology has enabled to shape food in unique and complex 3D shapes. For the first time, we directly printed chocolate-based inks in its liquid phase using direct ink writing (DIW) 3D printer to model complex 3D shapes without temperature control. We termed this method as chocolatebased ink 3D printing (Ci3DP). Ci3DP is complementary to currently available methods of 3D printing of chocolates based on hot-melt extrusion where the printing ink is heated and molten before patterning. Techniques based on extrusion have limitations with respect to the stability and self-supporting properties of the printed objects[11] Owing to their simplicity, extrusion has been used to print different types of foods[14]
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have