25 June 2016

Call for papers: "Developments in 3D Food Printing for People with Special Dietary Needs"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Rapid Manufacturing.

3D food printing is emerging as a high-resolution computer-aided-design and additive-manufacturing approach for producing food products. The benefits offered by 3D food printing include custom design and production of visually appealing foods, making foods for people with special mealtime needs, a reduction in design and fabrication time and cost, and a decrease in the dependency on skilled personnel among others.

While a host of 3D food printing research work has been published, the majority of the current work has been focused on technology development and experimenting with printing food samples. Thus so far, only a few efforts have been spent on tailoring 3D food printing for satisfying the dietary requirements of specific groups of people.

Particularly, there exist several groups of people who have requirements for foods with specific composition and handling process including: babies and toddlers, elderly people, pregnant women, people with swallowing difficulty, people with a weakened immune system, people on diets people with food allergies, people with gluten sensitivity, and athletes.

3D food printing can be used to address the special dietary requirements of these groups of people by automating the design and production of food, improving the consistency and repeatability of food characteristics including texture and moisture, enhancing the taste sensory experiences in the meal, and producing visually attractive food.

This special issue seeks research contributions that describe the achievements in building 3D printers for producing food, and will report on the exercises in 3D printing of food products for people with special dietary requirements. We invite contributions from the engineering, materials, exercise and nutrition, and medical researchers and relevant industries, and welcomes both fundamental as well as applied research contributions.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited, to the following:
  • Construction of 3D food printers
  • Design of hardware for 3D food printers
  • Design of software for 3D food printers
  • Design of food fabrication techniques
  • Formulation of multi-material food printing
  • Investigation of materials for 3D food printers
  • Integration of all preparation, printing, and cooking processes
  • Optimisation of 3D food printing time and cost
  • 3D printed food for babies and toddlers
  • 3D printed food for elderly people
  • 3D printed food for pregnant women
  • 3D printed food for people with swallowing difficulties
  • 3D printed food for people with a weakened immune system
  • 3D printed food for people on diets
  • 3D printed food for people with food allergies
  • 3D printed food for people with gluten sensitivity
  • 3D printed food for athletes
  • Overview of technologies, development, and applications of 3D food printers
  • Health and safety aspects of 3D food printing
  • Ethical aspects of 3D food printing
  • Consumer views of 3D printed food

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 31 December, 2016
Notification to authors: 31 March, 2017
Final versions due: 31 May, 2017

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