3D Printed Heat-Exchangers for Household Coffee-Machines (3D COFFEE)
3D Coffee wants to create an innovative heat-exchanger for more sustainable, and high-quality coffee preparation.
3D Coffee wants to create an innovative heat-exchanger for more sustainable, and high-quality coffee preparation.
Today, espresso machines are either electro-thermic or traditional (e.g., moka pots). The former, which allows for a good coffee delivery thanks to electronic process control, is quite expensive, noisy, and has a higher environmental impact. The latter, on the contrary, being compact, more environmentally friendly, and cheaper, gives a lower coffee quality as it cannot control temperature and pressure during the preparation process. In this scenario, the 3D coffee project aims to develop a heat-exchanger for coffee machines with thermodynamic characteristics such as to guarantee the preparation of coffee in a more sustainable, performing, economical and quality way. Funded by the European project DIH-World, 3D coffee is a six-month experiment led by Additive Appliances in team with Kilometro Rosso. Additive Appliances is a startup with a strong experience in 3D printing applications for the customization of numerous low environmental impact appliances.
Validation of both the digital tween and the AI-driven Model-based Design used to optimize the conformal topology of the heat-exchanger.
3D printing of the heat exchanger and optimization of the Additive Manufacturing process through a set of test-bench prototypes.
Measuring of the highly-efficient heat exchanger’s performance enabling a more energy-efficient and sustainable coffee preparation.
Duration 6 months
Kick-off meeting 01/10/2021
Closing of the testing phase 01/2022
Presentation of the results at the DIH-World Community Day 04/2022
Kilometro Rosso’s role is to 3D print Additive Appliances’ prototype from aluminium powders and to optimize the printing process via a Direct Metal Laser Sintering printer equipped with in-process quality monitoring. This work will be conducted with the support of Lisa Tech, the Living Space for Additive Technologies through its prime Metal AM infrastructure and expertise. In addition, Kilometro Rosso is in charge of communicating and disseminating the project content and results.
This project has indirectly received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, via an Open Call issued and executed under project DIH-WORLD (grant agreement No 952176).
