Food 3D Printing with Starch Suspension

Abstract

: 3D food printing is a method of making a novel three-dimensional processed food based on digital data by applying additive manufacturing technology to food materials [1]. Food 3D printers are expected to serve foods with controlling nutrients and textures suitable for an individual's health. There are many different types of food 3D printers such as screw type, syringe type, inkjet type, etc. But there are few 3D printers capable of printing hard textured foods. We aim to develop a food 3D printer capable of printing hard textured food with starch suspension [2]. In the printing process, the starch suspension is irradiated with a blue laser, and irradiated spot is gelatinized by heat generated by photothermal conversion. Experiments: The Food 3D printer is based on a commercially available 3D printer Geetech i3 pro B. The extruder unit of Geetech i3 pro B is replaced by a blue laser (wavelength 450 nm) module (alfawise 5500mm ). The maximum laser output is 5.5W. We select a visible blue laser that is common and safe. As the first experiment, We print a pyramid shape (shown in Fig.1) using starch suspension as a printing material. The pyramid has composed of five layers and the thickness of each layer is 0.5 mm. The bottom layer is a 10mm square and the higher layer has shorter edges. Fig.2 shows a schematic diagram of the modeling method. The starch suspension (50 % wt in water) is poured (added) into the container and leveled to make 0.5mm thickness. The liquid surface of the Suspension is irradiated with laser and gelatinized. 3D printing is performed by repeating those processes. Tartrazine (0.03% wt) is added for enhancing the absorption of the blue laser. The laser scan speed is set at 5.0 mm/s. Results: Fig.3 shows a Photo of the 3D printed pyramid structure. We successfully 3D printed pyramid structure with starch suspension. The 3D printed pyramid structure is larger than the original pyramid 3D data. We assume that the gelatinized starch absorbed water and swelled during and after the 3d printing process.