Page 60 - IJB-4-2

Extrusion-based 3D food printing – Materials and machines

(A) refilling without interruption. This is a rare feature
among 3D food printers. However, the driving force for
the extrusion is undisclosed. It is advertised [33] to be a
“non-syringe extrusion method” and capable of “24-hour
non-stop operation”. A picture of the print head is shown
in Figure 10.

(B)

Figure 10. Qiaoke top-loading hoppers on the print head. Picture
from QiaoKe official website .
[28]

3.1.10 BeeHex food printer, USA (Figure 6J) [34]

The BeeHex printer has its roots in NASA, and is
now also engaged by the US army for personalized
nutrition [34] . BeeHex owns a patent that details a
self-cleaning technology that is important for food
processing equipment . It uses a separate CNC robot to
[39]
perform consistent cleaning cycles on the food-contact
components which are prone to biofilm formation.
Cleaning agents include hot or cold water, radiation and
(C) also conventional cleaning solutions, as shown in Figure
11.

3.1.11 Pancakebot 2.0 (Figure 6K) by PancakeBotTM,
Norway [35]

The PancakeBot 2.0 uses a patented batter dispensing
system [40] that uses compressed air for extrusion
and vacuum for holding. This is done by a small
side-mounted vacuum pump (Figure 12 part 16) in
conjunction with two 3-way valves (Figure 12 parts 18a
and 18b). Like the ZBOT F5, it contains a heated print
bed for instant cooking.
3.1.12 3D everything concept printer [36] (Figure 6L)
and Barilla pasta printer [41] (Figure 6M) by TNO, the
Netherlands
Figure 9. (A) Interior design of Sanna showing robot arm and TNO is at the forefront of 3D food printing research and
infrared module. (B) Exterior view of infrared module. (c) Frozen
carrots, pureed, frozen and sliced. All pictures taken from Creative has kept its 3D food printing technology well protected
Machines Lab website . under various patents. Thus, their extrusion-based
[31]
8 International Journal of Bioprinting (2018)–Volume 4, Issue 2