Additive manufacturing

(Soft Materials)

Additive manufacturing, which is also known as 3D printing, is an emerging and growing technology. It is providing significant innovations and improvements in many areas such as engineering, production, medicine, and more. 3D food printing is an area of great promise to provide an indulgence or entertaining experience, personalized food product, or specific nutritional needs. This paper of ours, reviews the additive manufacturing methods and materials in detail as well as their advantages and disadvantages. After a full discussion of 3D food printing, the reports on edible printed materials are briefly presented and discussed. In the end, the current and future outlook of additive manufacturing in the food industry is shown.

Cold extrusion 3D food printing is an emerging technology which enables the manufacture of food in different shapes and structures and offers huge potential for personalised food products. We investigated rheological properties and printability (shape fidelity) of food-grade hydrocolloid pastes. From our study, it was found that if the phase angle is in the range of 3°–15° and the relaxation exponent is in the range of 0.03–0.13 the paste material is printable, which means that it can support its own-weight if printed. As the demand for inks for 3D printing increases, rheological measurements can rapidly assist with the development of new ink feedstocks.