High Internal Phase Emulsions for 3D Food Printing
Summary
High internal phase emulsions (HIPEs) – colloidal systems in which the dispersed phase exceeds 74 % of the total volume – have emerged as a versatile platform for formulating printable food inks with tailored textures, stability and functionality. By virtue of their high oil‐to‐water ratio, HIPEs can yield highly porous, low‐fat or nutritionally enriched structures that mimic traditional meat analogues, cheese and confectionery. The key to successful extrusion‐based printing lies in balancing shear thinning, yield stress and rapid structure recovery so that printed filaments retain shape fidelity without clogging nozzles. Stabilisation strategies range from conventional molecular surfactants to particle-based (Pickering) approaches, in which food-grade biopolymers, microcrystalline cellulose or starch nanoparticles adsorb at interfaces to prevent coalescence. Recent advances exploit dynamic interfacial layers, thermo-responsive gelling agents and bioactive conjugates to impart stimulus-responsive behaviour, antioxidant or antimicrobial functions and hierarchical porosity. Together, these developments point towards personalised nutrition, functional meat analogues and even smart packaging, as well as applications beyond food in tissue engineering and biofabrication.
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High Internal Phase Emulsions for 3D Food Printing publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in high internal phase emulsions for 3d food printing across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
High Internal Phase Emulsion (HIPE): An emulsion in which the internal (dispersed) phase exceeds 74 % of the total volume, yielding highly porous gel networks upon solidification.
Pickering Emulsion: An emulsion stabilised by solid particles (often biopolymeric) adsorbed at the oil–water interface rather than by molecular surfactants.
Viscoelasticity: The property of a material that exhibits both viscous flow and elastic deformation under applied stress.
Thixotropy: The time-dependent shear thinning and recovery behaviour of a gel or colloidal network, critical for extrudability and shape retention in printing.
Direct Ink Writing (DIW): An extrusion-based additive manufacturing technique in which a shear-thinning ink is deposited layer by layer to build three-dimensional structures.
References
- 4D printing of poly-Pickering high internal phase emulsions to assembly a thermo-responsive shape-memory hierarchical macroporous scaffold. Additive Manufacturing (2024).
- A smart thermoresponsive macroporous 4D structure by 4D printing of Pickering-high internal phase emulsions stabilized by plasma-functionalized starch nanomaterials for a possible delivery system. Current Research in Food Science (2024).
- Bibliometric mapping analysis of Pickering emulsion applied in 3D food printing. International Journal of Food Science & Technology (2024).
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