3D Printed Heat-Exchangers for 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 passive heat exchanger for coffee machines (electric and non-electric) 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.
Model-Based Design to find the optimal topology of a conformal, highly-efficient and passive heat-exchanger
Validation of the heat-exchanger model against a set of 3D printed prototypes and their realization
Test of the performance of the heat-exchanger in enabling a more efficient and sustainable coffee preparation
Duration 6 months
Kick-off meeting 01/10/2021
Mid-Term Report 24/01/2022
Final Event 06/04/2022
End of the Experiment
14/04/2022
DIH-World Community Day
29/04/2022
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).
