3D Printed Fish Tissue Successfully Created in China

Consuming fish, whether sourced through fishing or aquaculture, comes with environmental drawbacks. However, it doesn’t look like fish are leaving our diets anytime soon. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 140 million tons of fish will be consumed worldwide by 2050. To address the demand for fish as well as the environmental costs of acquiring them, many different companies and researchers have invested their time into 3D printed fish solutions. Most recently, a team in China successfully printed plant-based simulated yellow croaker meat tissues this September.

To face this problem, the researchers sampled parts of the dorsal, abdominal, and tail of yellow croaker fish. These samples were then processed, immersed in iodine solutions, and subject to micro-CT scans that allowed them to differentiate between muscle and fat. Subsequently, they created 3D models of the micro-CT scan data and used CAD software to complete the simulation.

Micro-CT scanning of different parts of yellow croaker fish muscle tissue

The team used a 3D printer with two nozzles, one for simulated muscle ink, and one for simulated fat ink. The muscle ink was composed of soy protein isolate-xanthan gum-starch complex, and the fat ink was made of nanostarch-carrageenan emulsion gel. For the project, they used a multi-functional extrusion-based 3D bioprinter from China-based Engineering For Life, or EFL Tech Co. The study’s lead author, Jie Li, explained how they optimized the printing process “by controlling the dual-nozzle printing process parameters, including manual calibration of the dual-nozzle offset, layer height, fill rate, printing speed, air pressure, etc.” As a result, more than 90% of the structure’s composite was accurate.