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Engineers Make Parts Out of the Sugar Used in Throat Lozenges

David Mantey
1/27/2019 | 5 min read
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Engineers Make Parts Out of the Sugar Used in Throat Lozenges

Engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are 3D printing parts out of isomalt, the type of sugar alcohol that is used to make throat lozenges. The team built a custom 3D printer that is different than the traditional printers that build in layers.

The technology could be used to create scaffolds for tissue engineering. The thought is that you print the structure, grow the tissue over it, and then dissolve the structure, leaving the tissue behind. The team has experimented with a number of shapes, such as a 3D-printed heart model and … a bunny. For the bunny, the team mixed the isomalt sugar with a glowing red dye that can be used for biomedical imaging. 

During the freeform printing process, the melted sugar hardens as it is printed. Similar to other 3D-printing processes, it still takes a considerable amount of time to print. A time-lapse of a 3D-printed bridge seems quick (1:19 minutes), but it actually took about 40 minutes to build. 

The isomalt creates water-soluble, biodegradable structures that could also be used in cancer research for growing and studying tumors. 

It's a similar technology that is used in 3D printing pens, like the one from 3Doodlers which Nissan used to print an SUV — it only took 8.6 miles of filament.

This isn't the first time that researchers have printed with sugar, but this method sidesteps previous problems with the sugar burning or crystallizing.

This printer has the right mix of temperature, print speed, and extrusion, and each variable can be altered to give the parts various mechanical properties.

Wolfram Research collaborated with the University of Illinois on the project and created the algorithm that maps out the printing pathways.

The team is now working on material coatings that will enable improved control over how the isomalt dissolves.

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