Physicists figured out how to design and print the most delicious chocolate in the world

A team of Dutch scientists decided to create the perfect piece of chocolate using new 3D printing technologies:

they wanted to make a pattern that would crumble nicely when bitten.

An experienced chocolatier heats and cools the emulsion,to create an ideal crystal lattice structure. According to physicist and chocolate shop owner Richard Tango-Lowe, cocoa butter is a six-phase polymorphic crystal. It has a V phase, which can be called ideal: it crackles and melts, rather than crumbles. It also gives high-quality chocolates a glossy shine. But it may take weeks for a piece of such chocolate to completely crystallize. Moreover, phase V crystals are unstable and can turn into dull phase IV crystals over time.

The authors of the new work proceeded from the idea thatmost people like their chocolate to have a crunch when they bite into it. So they designed a chocolate shape that would be as crunchy as possible. They found that the spiral was ideal.

The team then began experimenting withstructures that are as strong as possible when broken in one direction, but brittle and crackle in the opposite direction.

Anisotropic research is an attempt to create chocolates that are super strong when force is applied to one axis and super crispy when force is applied to another.

For this, the team decided to use a 3D printer.and print the product on it. It was tempered in a specific way to maximize the formation of phase V crystals. To do this, the authors heated the chocolate to 45°C to destroy all the crystals. It was then allowed to cool with hard pellets until the temperature dropped below 34°C. At this point, the researchers loaded the chocolate into syringes and placed them in the 3D bioplotter cartridges. After that, they tried to print the created forms on a special basis with a temperature of 12 °C.

But the authors encountered a problem:the chocolate began to crystallize right in the syringe tube, so the machine had to be constantly recalibrated as the thickness of the printed lines changed. It also became thicker as the printing progressed, so pressure and speed had to be adjusted as each layer was printed.

The authors stated that in the continuation of the work they plan to correct the problems that appeared during the printing process.

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