Stéphane Portanguen (Thesis began in 2019)

Stéphane is working in the Imaging and Transfers Team under the direction of Pierre-Sylvain Mirand (QuaPA) and Thierry Astruc (QuaPA).

Mixed functional food design by additive manufacturing (3d printing) 

In the coming decades, the growth and aging of the population (2.1 billion people over 60 years old in 2050, including 434 million over 80 years old for a total population estimated at nearly 10 billion people) will lead to further upheavals in the food sector. This is true for access to resources, for the way to consume, or for taking into account a number of age-related or deficiency-related conditions for younger people. The increase of the population is associated with the appearance of different "subpopulations" that require specific foods, in terms of nutrition and structure. Current and future consumers are and will be, at the same time, looking for healthier and more natural products, allowing them to live longer in better health.

The aim of this thesis is to design new personalized foods, using innovative technology in the food sector: additive manufacturing (3D printing). The main idea of this project is to lay the foundation for the manufacture of a food combining animal and vegetable proteins, while controlling the structure and the final texture of the product without using some chemicals additives (this last point is currently the major technological lock), including after a post-treatment phase (cooking). Finally, special attention will be given to the health dimension of the product, as well as how it can be assimilated at the level of the organism (in vitro digestion).

The interest of associating animal and plant matrices is to be able to take advantages of the nutritionals qualities of animal proteins, and the texturizing and antioxidant properties of molecules of plants sources. At the process level, the advantage of additive manufacturing lies in the possibility of creating an architecture that allows: 1) to control the structure of the product (and therefore the effort it is necessary to chew it), 2) to associate different matrices of convergent interests, and 3) to couple, at the same time, a system of post-processing of hight precision. This work is also part of a sustainable development approach. Indeed, since population growth is likely to pose a problem of access to resources, foods "of the future", designed and manufactured by 3D printing will have to combine nutrients (proteins, polysaccharides, lipids ...) from foodstuffs little or poorly valued (low meat carcasses, fruits and vegetables out of standard ...).