Say, you made a bowl using a 3D printer… like a Makerbot… can you put food in it and eat out of it? Are these 3D print materials toxic in any way?
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There are filaments out there that are FDA approved for food contact, both PLA and ABS.
However, I wouldn’t consider anything printed with an FDM 3D printer to be food safe. The surface will have too many ridges and pits that bacteria can get into. Mechanical washing can’t get to those areas.
MB3D
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As far as I know, neither PLA nor ABS are foodsafe, but Polyester based materials, like PET, XT or T-Glase are usually food safe. I myself have printed a bowl or two out of T-Glase and stored sweets (M&M’s) in there. This is no problem, however I wouldn’t recommend printing a bowl that you’d use to make any kind of liquid or dough. As “czucker” said, small particles of the 3d print can become loose and get into the dough.
Also theoretically using brass nozzles can contaminate the print, using stainless steel nozzles would be better, since brass contains lead and this can theoretically get into the print.
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