Flat pasta is boiled and transformed into the shape of a heart. [Photo/hangzhou.com.cn]

Flat pasta, when boiled in water, can be transformed into three-dimensional shapes, and this characteristic can improve the efficiency of certain food manufacturing processes and facilitate the sustainable packaging of food. For instance, companies can create morphing pasta that can be flat-packed to reduce the air pockets in packaging.

The finding was published as a cover article on Science Advance magazine on May 5.

The team was led by Tao Ye, School of Artistic Design and Creation, Zhejiang University City College, and consisted of 17 researchers from Zhejiang University, Carnegie Mellon University, Syracuse University, and Georgia Institute of Technology.

The team pointed out in the article that it takes less time to cook flat pasta, which means the morphing pasta they have designed can also reduce the carbon emission of kitchens.

Zhejiang scholars' article on morphing pasta is featured on the website of Science Advances on May 11. [Photo/advances.sciencemag.org]

They also demonstrated using quantitative experiments and multiphysics simulations that "parametric surface grooving can induce temporary asynchronous swelling or deswelling and can transform flat objects into designed, three-dimensional shapes."

The research also indicates that the morphing mechanism can apply to other materials and be used in robotics and biomedicine.

The article on the website of Science Advances. [Photo/advances.sciencemag.org]