Multimaterial 3D printing of plant protein-based material

Abstract

3D food printing has become a method of fabricating plant protein-based materials for personalized shapes and compositions. However, 3D printing of multiple plant protein-based materials presents considerable challenges owing to the complexity of animals in texture and component. Therefore, aiming to the limitation of textural properties and printing speed (multiple materials switching) of 3D printing of multiple plant protein-based materials, a screw-based dual-nozzle plant protein-based 3D printing method is proposed. Firstly, the physical field numerical simulation of in-cylinder velocity, shear rate, and pressure was carried out for the developed screw-based dual-nozzle and syringe-based 3D printing devices. Numerical simulation results indicate that this method enhances the shear force and pressure on the plant protein inside the printhead, improving printing speed and promoting gelation of the globular proteins. Then, the same plant protein-based material was added to different printing devices to compare the hardness, elasticity, and chewiness of 3D printed samples. The experimental results show that the plant protein-based material samples printed by screw-based dual-nozzle 3D printing device reduce the relative error values of hardness, elasticity, and chewiness when compared to a reference animal-based material, chicken, by 5.4 %, 4.6 %, and 31.8 %, respectively, realizing the continuous printing of two plant protein-based materials, which lays a foundation for improving the 3D printing efficiency of a variety of plant protein-based materials.