6. BioFabricating Materials¶
Grown Material¶
I was introduced to the realm of biological materials by accident two years ago when my sister-in-law gave me a SCOBY, thinking I would use the liquid that came out of it. t is well known that kombucha has probiotic benefits, promoting a healthy immune system and relieving stomach and intestinal issues. I used to drink it with sugar, lemon, and ginger, but after a few months, I started to grow tired of it. Then, in an attempt to save it, and having in mind the work of Suzanne Lee from an early age, I also thought of experimenting with Kombucha leather. Beginning with the use of small taps, I quickly changed to the huge boxes. During the process, I had light kombuchas made with green tea, dark kombuchas made with black tea, and at last, cimarron to achieve the darkest color. At the final, I even mixed the Scobie’s from both teas, resulting in a mix of bright and dark leather.
References & Inspiration¶
From Youtube¶
Ingredients & Recipes¶
Prepare this recipe 1 by collecting the ingredients necessary, to be found in the list below:
* xxx 5lt of water
* xxx 10 tea bags of green or black tea
* xxx 10 tablespoons of sugar
* xxx SCOBY
* xxx A large pan
* xxx A big spoon to stir the tea with sugar
* xxx A BigBox
* Put the water to heat and when it is boiling, add the tea bags (green for light kombucha or black for dark kombucha)
* Let the tea cool down and join the sugar
* When the mix were cold put the liquid in the box and join the SCOBY
* Let it growing during 1 or 2 weeks, depending on the thickness we want
Biomaterials¶
Process and workflow¶
Biomaterials projects are becoming popular among designers and innovative producers to face the environmental problems that comes from plastic. So, in order to test new materials from organic resources I tried to make different recipes to realized different characteristics between each other. Below 2 we can show the recipes were chosen
![] (https://gitlab.fabcloud.org/academany/fabricademy/2024/students/carla-pereira/-/raw/main/docs/images/week06/AllRecipesImgs.png)
[ ] Agar foil |
[ ] Biofoam |
[ ] Alginate net |
[ ] Bioresin |
comparing experiments¶
TESTS COMPARING¶
| Material name | Solvent | Polymer | Plastifier | Filler | Emulsifier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 AGAR BIOFOIL |
water 250 ml | agar 5 gr | glycerine 15 ml | ||
| GELATINE BIOFOAM |
water 240 ml | gelatine 48 gr | glycerine 12 ml | green soap 10ml | |
| ALGINATE BIOPLASTIC |
water 200 ml | alginate 12 gr | glycerine 20 ml | 50gr clam shell | |
| BIORESIN |
water 240 ml | gelatine 48 gr | glycerine 8 ml | grounded cork 7gr |
RESULTS¶
