6. Biofabricating

This week I worked on biomaterials, their process and experimentations to decides what materials i want to use for my final project. The journey have been quite exciting, from Agar Agar to Colofonia or even Mycelium. So i'm going to share my best samples and also share my faults.

Stage 1: Biomaterials and equipment

Gelatine recipe

Basic

240 ml - Cold water

48gr - Gelatine powder

12gr - Glycerol

What I add to make it special?

1st experiment

  • 6.7gr - Yerba Mate

  • 1/5 teaspoon - Green mica powder

  • 5ml - Vinegar

2nd experiment

I was looking to do biomaterials with different colors and different elasticity. So for this recipe I used more clycerine than before and used warm colors: red and yellow mica powder.

  • 6.7gr. - Eggs shell
  • 1/5 teaspoon - Red and yellow mica powder
  • 22 gr. Glycerine

Plus color

  • A teaspon of Chicory iron and 1/5 teaspoon - Red mica powder. Now mix everything with a spoon. Next step, put it inside a frame to keep a shape.

Results before dry

Results after dry

Alginato

Mycelium

Building the house

Recipe

  • 0.2gr - Baige paper
  • 0.2gr - Red paper
  • 0.6gr - Hemp
  • 1gr - Alpaca fabric
  • 2ml + 5 spray - Mycelium

Dry - 1 day waiting

We wait one day before putting a piece of mycelium fungus called Reishi and cultivated by Jess.

Results

We are waiting for it.

Stage 2: Biocomposite with Colofonia + Cera Carnauba

Recipe 1

  • 40gr Food waste - 30gr Apple + 9gr onion + 1gr garlic blinds
  • 10gr Colofonia / Pin Resin
  • 30ml Alcohol
  • 30gr Cera Carnauba / Beewax

Add alcohol and pine resin in the pot and let it heat up slowly without agitating. Once the pine resin has disolved into a liquid solution add the waste of your choice and mix until you obtain an homogenous mix.

Recipe 2

Follow the same steps than before but this time add new plus ingredients.

  • 40gr Food waste - 20gr Banana + 18 gr coffee + 2gr flower hibiscus
  • 10gr Colofonia / Pin Resin
  • 30.7ml Alcohol
  • 30gr Cera Carnauba / Beewax
  • 10.3gr Glicerina

Stage 3: Sheel eggs

Recipe

For this recipe you need only 3 ingredients. But the most important step here is to crush the eggshells as much as possible. So we will have the powder ready to mix.

  • 70% eggs powder
  • 30% Blinder - Alginato (2%) + water (98%)

Now mix the powdered egg with the alginate when ready, put it in a syringe to extrude it. With the mix inside let's get fun and make our own design.

Still experiment

Recipe for Agar Agar

After read The Secrets of Bioplastic by Clara Davis and made some experiments that i showed before I dicided to do a bigger bioplastic of Agar Agar, following the next recipe:

  • 12gr Agar Agar
  • 400ml Water
  • 18gr Glycerol

This is how i failled doing the first sample. What i learned were two points:

  1. Put the agar agar when the water is cold, before put it to cook.
  2. Don't put such more water. I tried to fixed my first faill but put more water didn't help.

Final sheet

The dimensions of this sheets are 66x45cm and we had put the samples to dry in the air dryer at 30 degrees for 10 hours hanging

*Some testing for use in shoes.