7. BioFabricating Materials

Research

Biomaterials are substances either completely natural or artificial design to interact on a safety way with complex biological systems. The first biomaterial use in the human history is dated in ancient Egypt, when they used animal sinew to suture. But now a days they are starting to take an interesting turn in the areas of design, substituting wood, fabric, plastic, even metal. They can be reengineered into molded or machined parts, coatings, fibers, films, foams, and fabrics for use in biomedical products and devices. These may include heart valves, hip joint replacements, dental implants, or contact lenses. They often are biodegradable, and some are bio-absorbable, meaning they are eliminated grad. For example: Bio-yarn is a different, more natural way of replacing conventional textiles, often derived from petroleum that have a significant environmental footprint.

How might we invent technologies to enable co-design, co-manufacturing and co-habitation across species?

If we take a look at the nature, well see that it actually creates lots of material of their own, so why not find a way of working with nature rather than using it?. That's why I find Neri Oxman's work, SILK PAVILLION II, so interesting. Is is a structure that was built to provide the best conditions for silkworms, facilitating their silk production. This kinetic mandrel guides the silkworms' natural spinning motion.

"The Pavilion was constructed in horizontal orientation, with mechanical top-down kinetic manipulation enabling constant clockwise rotation of the mandrel that facilitates the silkworms’ upward spinning motion. Fiber density across the surface area of the structure varies as a function of local environmental factors such as the direction, duration and intensity of heat and light, as well as the topology of the kinetic hyperboloid that is designed to guide the movement of the silkworms. These factors can affect the silkworms’ movement and spinning, and thereby the resulting thickness of the silk layer produced. The Pavilion’s primary structure and the soluble knit scaffold are stretched with a cable system; given its physical properties, the intermediate knit yarn layer acts as support for the silkworms. The holes, which release some of the tensile stress in the structure, result from chemical reactions between the silkworms’ excretions and the underlying yarn. These structural forces are influenced biochemically, expressing a ‘metabolic footprint’ of the silkworms’ fluxes and flows"

References & Inspiration

@blanca.sume Crochet hecho con bio-hilos ✨ #biomaterials #biothreads #biohilos #biotextiles #bioyarn ♬ som original - 🪐musics

@e..pop quilting scoby leather 🦧🥜🚜 #scoby #scoobydoobydoo #quilt #quilting #textiles #vegan #experiment ♬ Mushroom Men - Les Claypool

@daifein Bioplastic dragon skin with only 3 ingredients: Water, gelatin and glycerin! Can wait to show you what I did with this one 🧪💚 #bio #plastic #dragon #skin #steam ♬ Golden brown by the stranglers - ꧁rosyapple2꧂

Scoby-GROW:

The first biomaterial we wanted to grow was scoby. (Bacterial Cellulose / SCOBY Leather / Bio-fabric / Biopolymer)

Scoby Recipe

Recipe:

• 18gr of black tee (no caffeine)
• 300 gr sugar
• 1lt Scoby
• 4lt of water

To optimize time, first starting boiling 3Lt of water in a pot, then we measure the dry ingredients, 18 gr of tea and 300 of sugar using a balance. To make the tea an infusion, we cut and collocate the tea in a cloth and wrapped it using another peace to roll it and secure it. When the water started boiling, we added first the sugar and mix it to dilute it and then added the tea cloth and then let it boil for half an hour.

IMPORTANT: Don't make to tight the tea cloth otherwise it will not release the tea properly.

Once the 30 min passed, turn off the fire and then we added the remaining liter to help it cold down, letting it rest until it wasn’t too hot, otherwise it can kill the Scoby.

While we waited, we cleaned the container:

1. Wash with potable water

2. Spray ethanol 70%, then wipe it 

3. Spray once again but let it air dry.

Then, we first pour the infusion of the tea in the container and added the liter of Scoby avoiding it to bubble. To secure it we cut a piece of cloth bigger that the container to cover it using a big rubber. It is important that the cloth is strained so it doesn't drip.

We let it grow for 15 days and then we had to change the infusion because it turned acid, and it can stop growing. To measure the Ph we used test strips, we open a little bit the cloth and with a syringe we took a sample.

To change the solution, we used the same formula we used to do it the first time, this time only we didn’t add the liter of Scoby but simple leave it in the container and took the 3 liters out to replace them with the new mix. Always keeping it close when we didn’t need it to manipulate to avoid contamination.

First change

One of our kombuchas grow a mold, so we had to throw all that away and make it from scratch using a liter of the other kombucha that was free of mold. Before using it again we washed the container with chlorine to eliminate any bacteria.

Second change

Post process

We took out the grown SCOBY of our kombuchas and place them in different surfaces to make them take that form when drying. I used a ceramic plate that we already had in the node and a 3d model of a face. Before collocating the scoby I washed and disinfected with both soap and water to remove all dirt and eliminate bacteria from the surfaces in wich I would lay them. To prevent them from sticking and becoming impossible to separate I apply a layer of glycerin.

I collocate the SCOBY carefully of not pulling to hard avoiding tearing it apart and place them on both surfaces. It the case of the face I cut the eyes so it would perfectly rest on the surface and take the shape of the space of the eyebolts. I let them sit for three weeks.

Mycelium-GROW

(Fungal-based biocomposite material / Biofabricated / Grown material)

Mycelium Ingredients

Ingredients :

• Straw
• Pleurotus Ostreatus

The first thing I did was to wash straw with water to remove all the dirt it came with. Then I proceed to cut it with scissors in little pieces of about 2cm (1in) length. Finally, we put it all in a big pot with water adding a Ph regulator CaCO3 (calcium carbonate), letting it boil for about 1hr and a half.

Once it reached this point, we turn down the flame, and let it rest to cool for about 40 more minutes (you can't open it or force it to cool down because it would be no longer a sterile environment)

Before building the layers for the fungus to grow, first it is needed to clean the container:

1. Wash with potable water

2. Spray ethanol 70%, then wipe it 

3. Spray once again but let it air dry.

Now I  started to collocate a first layer of straw, it must fully cover the bottom of the container, then I sprinkle the fungus, and repeated this process until it was completely full.

Then I proceeded to put it in a plastic bag and sealed it with masking tape. For this organism to grow it needs to be in 18-25 ° C and darkness. Since I didn’t have an incubator, I put it behind the refrigerator. Unfortunately, it didn’t grow much, it died very early for lacking humidity

Bio-yarn / Biopolymer

For a final exercise we did some bio-yarn!

(Bio-based or biodegradable fiber/yarn)

Bio-yarn Recipe

Recipe:

• 500ml water
• 20g sodium binder
• 45gr glycerin

• Pigment (preferable powder)

• 100ml water

• 7% calcium chloride

First, we prepared the solution in which the bio yarn would solidify. Using a balance, I measure 100ml of water and 7gr of calcium chloride.

We mixed in a bowl until it completely homogenize In other bowl we made the mixture of water, sodium binder, and glycerin.

We took a little bit if this mixture and experimented with different pigments, most of them from the week Biochromes .

Once we had the mixture we passed it to a syringe, preventing air bubbles that could causes the thread to break, resulting in small sections instead of long pieces.

I decided to try two different braided that I used to do when I was little, and the result was a bracelet and a key change. The bio yarn shrinks of about 60% its size when completely dry, so take that into consideration.

Before:

After:

Overview material research outcomes

Bioyarn Roses	Bioyarn Curcuma	Bioyarn Muicle	Bioyarn Marigold

Mycelium	Scoby