Bio Material testing April 2019
Over the Easter break, I’ve started testing bio-materials using a few of the open source recipes from Materiom. I known I wanted to work with material I would be naturally discarding from my weekly shopping - mussel shells, eggshells, Nespresso coffee grounds and spirulina. The recipes are surprising easy to follow and can be made using your usual kitchen equipment (scales, cookers, moulds, thermometer, grinder). I managed to order most of the binding ingredients (agar agar, alginate, glycerol, gelatine and dextrin from Amazon.
The initial experiments have had varying success, and will require much further robust testing and recipe variations. It's been really interesting to observe the change in properties through the drying process. Some of the materials started off quite pliable, and then dried to a firm plastic-like material after 48 hours. One reflection I wasn’t expecting to encounter is it’s quite a sensory and hands on process - the smells, the feel of the different textures during the creative process, something that you just don’t encounter with man-made materials.
I am beginning to see the potential of where these materials could be taken in terms of product development and manufacturing. Charcoal bio-material is a material I am keen to start testing next. Partly due to its attractive silky or matt black appearance, charcoal also has air pollution filtration properties that are worth investigating. Clara Davis is a textile designer who has been working with Fablab in Barcelona conducting test with activated charcoal.
https://clara-davis.com/albums/research/