Читать книгу 3D Printing of Foods - C. Anandharamakrishnan - Страница 36

The advancement in technology greatly influences lifestyle and eating practices. The specific needs and dietary requirements made food scientists develop convenient processing technologies. One such approach is the 3D printing of foods that involves the layer‐by‐layer deposition of food material in a pre‐determined dimensions and shapes using computerized software (Kuo et al. 2021). 3D printing is an additive manufacturing (AM) process that is well established in many industrial sectors such as automobile, aerospace, fashion and designing, material science, construction, and medicine (Nida et al. 2020). However, applications of 3D printing in food manufacturing are under their initial growth stage that seems to be fascinating as well as challenging. In the food sector, 3D printing is recently gained potential research interest due to its novelty, convenience, creativity, efficiency, and flexibility (Jayaprakash et al. 2020). Since food is a complex multicomponent system, it possesses unique functional properties and characteristic behaviour to external treatments such as heating, cooling, mixing, and so on. Digitalization improves industrial production by implementing a novel design process thereby increases efficiency in both the manufacturing and supply chain (Baiano 2020). Thus, 3D printing is forecasted to be a revolutionizing technology that simplifies the food supply chain. 3D printing allows fabricating the foods as per the individual’s needs and requirements in a desired shape, size, colour, flavour, and nutrition. Also, 3D constructs with complex internal microstructures can be developed with greater accuracy and precision using 3D printing that are nearly impossible with conventional moulds (Mantihal et al. 2020).

The success of food printing depends on material composition, process conditions, and printing variables (Jiang et al. 2018). All these factors influence the final printability as well as edibility of the 3D constructs that makes 3D printing to be challenging when applied to foods. Hence, food printing is a multidisciplinary operation that requires knowledge of material science, software skills, mechanical as well as numerical controlling computer skills. In contrast to conventional food technologies, 3D printing allows the utilization of novel food ingredients and materials for the fabrication of foods (Derossi et al. 2020). As a characteristic feature, 3D printing uses uncommon protein sources such as fungi, algae, insects, buck wheat, and lupin seeds. As a sustainable technology, 3D printing utilizes the by‐products of the food processing industrial wastes for the development of value‐added sustainable foods for the future (Garcia‐Oliveira et al. 2020). However, the fuller potential of this emerging technology must be studied in detail to better understand the material behaviour. In this context, food printing technologies are one of the major considerations. As not all food materials are suitable for printing that requires appropriate pre‐processing that in turn depends on the specific printing technology. The present chapter provides a summary of various 3D printing techniques and their applications. As an initial attempt, the focus of this chapter is to streamline the available food printing technologies with their advantageous features and the different process variables that affect food printing. Thus, the present chapter provides a broad knowledge on the basic principle, mechanisms, and system components of food printing technologies that helps in better understanding and handling of food materials. Further, this work provides valuable insights in bridging up the gap in transformation of these lab‐scale techniques to industrial level.