According to its developers, the 3D printer creates complex edible structures and includes precision infrared heating for maximizing product quality and safety.

Overcoming obstacles common with other existing automated food production techniques — specifically, that current 3D printers tend to create food in two steps involving the extrusion of cold food paste and its subsequent transfer to an oven or fryer for cooking and sterilization, which often results in deformed shapes and increased contamination risks as the food is transferred between machines — the new 3D printer combines the two steps as it is capable of both building and cooking the food simultaneously.

Enabling this concurrent process of building and cooking is the use of the 3D printer’s infrared heater comprised of laser-induced graphene (LIG). The team explained that the ultra-thin heating element offers precise temperature control, with food layers reaching 278.6° F on the surface while maintaining at least 221° F on the sides during the entire printing process.

Requiring just 14 watts of power, the 3D printer uses just a fraction of the 1,000 watts to 2,000 watts consumed by conventional ovens and air fryers, the team reported.

The new printer was tested using a starch-based cookie dough wherein the printer extruded each new layer of dough as the infrared heater instantly cooked it. The team noted that the process allowed the cookie dough to maintain its shape while the infrared heater destroyed any harmful bacteria.

The new 3D printer is detailed in the article, “Advanced 3D Food Printing with Simultaneous Cooking and Generative AI Design,” which appears in the journal Advanced Materials.