7. BioFabricating Materials

This week was a bit of a disaster. All my experiments melted in the dehydrator, thinning them out and making them impossible to compare recipes. However, I still learned a lot and am very excited to keep working with biomaterials

WARNING!! When using the dehydrator, keep it on a low temperature and make sure to have a closed surface under your pieces (not a mesh)

Research

For my research I mostly depended on Fabricademy Alumni. A lot of other recipes are not as easily accessible, but Fabricademy alumni documented the processes in very detailed instructions! My favorite and the one I most closely followed was Loes Bogers who documented the 24 recipes below super clearly.

From Loes Boger's final Fabricademy project

In doing this I was also very curious about the ingredients, what they are and how they are produced. The main ingredients used in biomaterial recipes are Glycerol, Gelatine, Agar Agar, Sodium Alignate

Glycerol

"Natural glycerine is obtained primarily as a co-product from the production of fatty acid, fatty ester, or soap from oils and fats. Splitting or hydrolysis of oil, carried out under pressure and high temperature, produced fatty acids and sweetwater. The sweetwater contains 10–20% glycerol." -Science Direct

Gelatine

"Manufacturers produce gelatin by processing animal bones, cartilage, and skin. They may use the bodies of cows or fish, for example. The process extracts the collagen, a fibrous protein that connects muscles, bones, and skin, and turns it into gelatin, a flavorless, colorless, jelly-like substance." -Medical News Today

Agar Agar

Agar Agar is extracted from algae. There are 3 main ways to extract agar agar according to Gino Biotech. I've listed what they've defined as the traditional method below.

"The traditional agar extraction method is the high temperature and high pressure method. The extraction process is as follows.

Raw material treatment → soaking → boiling → filtering → cooling → dehydration → drying → crushing → packaging.

This extraction process is simple because there is no acid and alkali treatment, the agar molecules are less damaged and the extraction rate is higher, but also because there is no alkali treatment to remove sulfate, resulting in lower strength of agar gel. Generally, this method is suitable for raw materials with low sulfate base content, such as gelidium." -Agar Agar

Sodium Alignate

"Alginates are natural polysaccharides that are extracted from brown seaweed varieties and it is widely used for their rheological properties. The main step in the extraction protocol of sodium alginate is alkaline extraction. Sodium alginate was produced by dipping the seaweed in 1% formaldehyde and 2.5% of sodium carbonate solution and properties were studied following the standard methods" -Springer Nature Journal

References & Inspiration

Alicia Valdes

I took a workshop with Alicia Valdes last August in Paris to learn how to make bio yarn and bioplastics. Unfortunately my phone got stolen on the evening of the second day of the 2 day workshop so I've lost all my photos (I'm cursed when it comes to biomaterials), but it was so much fun to experiment.

"[Alicia Valdes is a] multidisciplinary designer currently based in Paris. [She] works at the intersection of bio-design and materials, circular textiles, fashion, and art." - Alicia's website

Skinned Potential

"Farmed salmon is the most consumed fish in the UK. By cutting fillets of salmon, it’s estimated around 30-40% of the fish is wasted. I’m concerned about the skins wasted in smoked salmon processing. The skin is often discarded or sold at low profitability such as fish oil or biofuel. Through historical, cultural and practical research and experimentation, I have developed my own plant based tanning method to transform the skins into leather. From there, I have developed a plethora of manipulation techniques to integrate fish leather into fashion, from sculpting to embellishing. A lot of hard work and love has gone into my garments, representing a story of transformative power." -Skinned Potential Website

Youyang Song

"Youyang Song, textile designer... She devotes herself in developing new biodegradable material, innovating and improving new material production technology as well as designing new-material related merchandises. She aims to establish a viable and complete ecosystem of bio-degradable material related products and she focuses on creating an eco-friendly, sustainable development business model with a zero-waste, zero pollution guideline." Youyang Song's Website

Eric Klarenbeek & Maartje Dros

"The light object is made from lab-grown native algae and seaweed, which have been processed into a material that the Designers of the Unusual developed, called Wierwaar / Weedware (www.weedware.org), which is used to 3D print the work. [The second vae-like piece] visualizes an emerging landscape made of 3D printed algae biopolymer based modular elements for vegetation, which have a positive effect on air quality" -Do Not Usual

Tools

- [recipes](https://class.textile-academy.org/2020/loes.bogers/projects/outcomes/24_core_recipes/)
- embroidery hoops
- plastic sheets, bubble wrap
- spoon, tongs, whisk etc
- scale
- pots

Ingredients & Recipes

Bioplastic / Gelatine Foil

Recipe taken from Loes Bogers. Prepare this recipe by collecting the ingredients necessary, to be found in the list below:

ingredientstoolsrecipe

* 24g Gelatine Powder
* 18g Glycerine
* 200 ml water

* stove
* pot
* scale
* spoon
* embroidery hoop or mold
* plastic sheet
* filler ingredients / dye (e.g., dried / ground eggshells)

* weigh ingredient
* prepare mold / plastic sheet
* bring water to a boil
* add glycerine
* add gelatine
* keep temperature between 60 and 80 defrees for 20 minutes. Stirring very slowly and gently to avoid bubbles
* let liquid cool for a couple minutes
* mix with filler or dye or leave as is
* cast onto the sheet slowly
* let dry for 48-72 hours
* if you put in a dehydrator keep temperature low (around 35 degrees) to avoid melting

Results

Note: For the results, keep in mind I put the dehydrator on the highest setting and over the mesh tray so a lot of them melted off so what was originally thick became quite thin and thus most of these comparisons are not accurate and results are not repeatable

Material pic	Material name	filler / other details	video
	gelatin foil	no dye added / extra thin
	gelatin foil	no dye added (but chemical indigo leaked from embroidery hoop) / extra thick
	gelatin foil	no dye added (but chemical indigo and yellow food coloring leaked from embroidery hoop) / bubble wrap (but wrong kind)
	gelatin foil	old campeche dye (and chemical indigo leaked from embroidery hoop)
	gelatin foil	coffee grounds

Biosilicone

Recipe taken from Loes Bogers. Prepare this recipe by collecting the ingredients necessary, to be found in the list below:

ingredientstoolsrecipe

* 48g Gelatine Powder
* 48g Glycerine
* 240 ml water

* stove
* pot
* scale
* spoon
* embroidery hoop or mold
* plastic sheet
* filler ingredients / dye (e.g., dried / ground eggshells)

* weigh ingredient
* prepare mold / plastic sheet
* bring water to a boil
* add glycerine
* add gelatine
* keep temperature between 60 and 80 defrees for 20-25 minutes. Stirring very slowly and gently to avoid bubbles
* let liquid cool for a couple minutes
* mix with filler or dye or leave as is
* cast onto the sheet slowly
* let dry for 48-72 hours
* If you put in a dehydrator keep temperature low (around 35 degrees) to avoid melting
* "Put the mould away to dry in a cool place with lots of air flow (like near an open window). A warmer place might speed up the drying process but also allow bacteria to grow faster and can result in fungal growth." - Loes Bogers

Results

Note: For the results, keep in mind I put the dehydrator on the highest setting and over the mesh tray so a lot of them melted off so what was originally thick became quite thin and thus most of these comparisons are not accurate and results are not repeatable

Material pic	Material name	filler / other details	video
	biosilicone	no dye added (but chemical indigo leaked from embroidery hoop) / extra thin	n/a
	biosilicone	no dye added (but chemical indigo leaked from embroidery hoop) / extra thick
	biosilicone	fish scales
	biosilicone	egg shells
	biosilicone	coffee grounds + eggshells
	biosilicone	coffee grounds + eggshells + dried root skin

Banana Peel Leather

Recipe adapted from Loes Bogers. I do not recommend my recipe. I think the banana peels might be too wet? Or rice starch is not thick enough.

Prepare this recipe by collecting the ingredients necessary, to be found in the list below:

ingredientstoolsrecipe

* 3 banana peels
* 15g rice starch dissolved in a little hot water
* 12 g vinegar (I did 16 because I poured too fast)
* 7 g salt
* 13 g glycerol

* stove
* pot
* scale
* spoon
* embroidery hoop or mold
* plastic sheet

* Cut off top and bottom of bananas peel and discard
* Chop up in small pieces
* Put into food processor with a little bit of water to make a paste
* Weigh ingredients
* Dissolve rice starch in vinegar
* Prepare mold / plastic sheet
* Put the banana peel puree in the pot with salt and vinegar
* Heat it at a low hear while stirring
* Dissipate some excess water if its very liquid
* Add starch, stir until it becomes a thick paste (mine never did)
* Pour onto mold
* Cool and dry
* carefully flip over to dry bottom part

Results

At first I was completely dissappointed. Its very wet and seemed like it would never dry. It tore and fell apart when I flipped it. But now when I test the dry part and test its strength and flexibility I'm very impressed! You'll see in the video below that one of the pieces rips, but this part was much wetter than the other so I think I just need to dry it for longer

After leaving it on the table in the very humid fablab for a few weeks, it only got wetter. So I'd say this is not a very realistic fabric (yet!) unless you're in a very dry climate

Tissue Waste Fabric

Prepare this recipe by collecting the ingredients necessary, to be found in the list below:

ingredientstoolsrecipe

* 12g Sodium Alignate
* 20g Glycerol
* 200 ml Water
* 300g wet fabric

* hand blender (like for soup)
* container
* scale

* weigh ingredients
* mix all ingredients
* blend with hand blender until uniform
* wet fabric and weigh 300g
* mix wet fabric with mixture
* press out into thin layer (not so thin as to make holes)
* let dry

Results

This tissue waste was created by the interns at Green Fabric who ran the tissue waste here through this grinder

The resulting waste looks like this:

When mixed with the recipe above (same recipe as algae yarn), it becomes very stiff as you can see below:

Alignate Beads

Recipe taken from Loes Bogers. Prepare this recipe by collecting the ingredients necessary, to be found in the list below:

ingredientstoolsrecipe

* 12g Sodium Alignate
* 20g Glycerol
* 400 ml Water
* calcium carbonate + water (1:10)

* hand blender (like for soup)
* container
* scale
* squeeze bottle or syringe or if you don't have a spoon is okay
* toothpick

* prepare calcium carbonate bath
* weigh ingredients
* mix all ingredients
* blend with hand blender until uniform
* load the squeeze bottle or syringe with the mixture (or scoop a bit with the spoon)
* drop small drops of the mixture in the calcium carbonate bath
* use a toothpick to pierce the small balls, remove the excess that comes out
* put back in the bath so the calcium carbonate coats the inside
* rinse with water
* let dry

Results

Mycelium

Prepare this recipe by collecting the ingredients necessary, to be found in the list below:

ingredientstoolsrecipe

* Complete Yeast Mixture:
*       yeast extract 2g / L
*       peptone 2g / L
*       Magnesium Sulfate Heptahydrate 0.5g / L
*       Monopotassium phosphate 0.46 g / L
*       Dipotassium phosphate 1g / L
*       Agar 12.5g / L
* Piece of live Mycelium

* scale
* container for mixing
* container that can be completely sealed
* warm space

* Sterilize everything! Clean surfaces, wear gloves
* Dissolve Complete yeast mixture in hot water
* Let cool
* Cut off piece of live mycelium and drop into cooled yeast mixture
* Close and seal receptacle

Above Photos by Jeanne

Results!!

Only one mycleium survived, but its beautiful! It's small, but quite thick and with a very cool texture. The texture could be due to the fact that it was on a surface that vibrates. We haven't done anything with it yet, but hope to soon