EAGER: Edible Mechanical Metamaterials via 3D Printing for Enhanced Food Properties

印刷食品有可能彻底改变食品的加工和加工方式，减少对环境的影响，提高健康效益。然而，尽管未来的进展和消费者需求前景看好，但现有的食品3D打印研究往往局限于对材料和打印技术的实证测试，而不是对食品力学的基本理解。这一早期概念探索性研究拨款(AGER)研究项目旨在确定结构对食品机械性能的作用，最终导致具有增强和可调食品性能的可食用机械超材料，这是传统方法无法实现的。该项目的成功将为探索更健康、更可持续和更低成本的食品创造机会。日益严重的气候危机和不断增加的全球人口加剧了粮食不安全和饥饿，31亿人--占世界人口的40%--买不起健康的饮食。对食品力学的理解将使针对全球和社会健康挑战(包括肥胖、营养不良和糖尿病)的创新食品解决方案能够通过量身定做质地、味道和营养来实现可行的扩大和民主化。这项工作还将促进减少食品浪费的制造方法；归根结底，高效的食品加工和设计将在减轻气候危机的影响方面发挥重要作用，并对人类健康产生影响。就更广泛的教育影响而言，这笔资金将有助于对本科生和研究生的培训。这项研究的目标是开发可打印、可食用食品(技术上是机械超材料)的结构-属性相关性，以及通过传统方法无法实现的定制结构属性。由于咀嚼涉及不同的机械过程，如咬合、咀嚼和吞咽，在微观和宏观尺度上表征和量化食物与其结构的关系将促进该领域对食物质量和感知的理解。考虑到这些关系的计算建模框架将允许系统地设计和验证3D打印的食品结构。这项研究将同时进行三次推进。首先，将对3D打印食品结构的微观结构力学进行表征。其次，将对由此产生的宏观结构力学进行评估。最后，将开发基于力学的3D打印“元食品”的设计和优化模型。对食品复杂、多组分性质的多尺度建模和理解将适用于其他复杂材料和应用，特别是在计算生物学和生物力学领域。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Printing of food has the potential to revolutionize how food is processed and experienced, offering reduced environmental impact and improved health benefits. Despite promising future advances and consumer demand, however, existing food 3D-printing research is often limited to empirical testing of materials and printing techniques without an underlying understanding of food mechanics. This EArly-Concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) research project aims to determine the role of structure on the mechanical properties of food, ultimately leading to edible mechanical metamaterials with enhanced and tunable food properties not achievable via conventional methods. The success of this project will create opportunities to explore healthier, more sustainable, and lower-cost food products. Exacerbated by the growing climate crisis and increasing global population, food insecurity and hunger are on the rise, with 3.1 billion people - 40 percent of the world’s population - unable to afford a healthy diet. An understanding of food mechanics will allow feasible scale-up and democratization of innovative food solutions for global and societal health challenges, including obesity, malnutrition, and diabetes, by tailoring for texture, taste, and nutrition. This work will also promote manufacturing methods that reduce food waste; ultimately, efficient processing and design of food will play a significant role in mitigating the effects of the climate crisis, with implications for human health. In terms of educational broader impacts, the funding will contribute to training of students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.The objective of this research is to develop structure-property correlations for printable, edible food (technically mechanical metamaterials) with tailored structural properties that are not achievable via conventional methods. Because mastication involves different mechanical processes such as biting, chewing, and swallowing, the characterization and quantification of the relation between food and its structure at the micro- and macroscale will advance the field’s understanding of food quality and perception. A computational modeling framework accounting for these relationships would allow for a systematic approach in designing and validating 3D-printed food structures. This research will be executed in three concurrent thrusts. First, the microstructural mechanics of 3D-printed food structures will be characterized. Second, the resulting macrostructural mechanics will be evaluated. Finally, mechanics-based models for design and optimization of 3D-printed “meta-foods” will be developed. The multiscale modeling and understanding of food’s intricate, multicomponent nature would be translatable to other complex materials and applications, especially in the fields of computational biology and biomechanics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.