PhD Contract - Food Additive Manufacturing: Improving 3D-printing of foods through advanced...

The Research Group in Novel Technologies for Food Processing of the University of Lleida -Agrotecnio CERCA Center looks for a candidate to apply for a First Stage Researcher (R1) fellowship call to carry out the PhD thesis within the framework of the ADVANTAM4FOOD project. This is a project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Knowledge Generation Projects, Call 2021, project PID2021-123516OB-I00). The title of the project is “Advanced physical food processing technologies for improving additive manufacturing of starchy products”.

Specifically, project is aimed at studying the relationships between advanced physical treatment conditions and starch sources for enabling the development of 3D-printing food applications. The project will evaluate the potential of different advanced physical processing technologies (pulsed electric fields, ultrasonication, pulsed light, atmospheric plasma, microfuidization and high-moisture extrusion) to modify the properties of starch and starchy products. This evaluation will consider structural, thermal, swelling and pasting

properties, as well as digestibility of the treated starches. The project work plan will be addressed to foster the generation of basic knowledge regarding the effects of the processing treatments as well as the influence of food source and composition. At the same time, applied studies will be carried out to assess the performance of the assayed treatments on complex starch matrices and their 3D-printing performance.

This contract offers the possibility of starting a scientific career with one of the world's leading research groups in Novel Technologies for Food Processing.