Week 7 - Transforming: Molding and Casting with Bioplastics
Transforming: Molding and Casting with Bioplastics
Last updated
Transforming: Molding and Casting with Bioplastics
Last updated
This week we are making bioplastics and I'm an team with Anoush again because of the corona virus. We have to write 150 words about social issues with bioplastic. Next to that you have to make an original image that fits your text. This week the editors for the zine are Dusanka and Britt.
Raw Materials
Bioplastics is plastic made out of renewable raw materials. There are a few Dutch designers who are looking into different kind of materials to make products out of bioplastics. Sometimes you can't see what kind of material it is made with. This information can influence the consumer, for better or for worse. Some think it’s really cool and unique while others can find it disgusting and have some social issues with it. So, do you tell them or not? That’s the question. My answer would be to go with the middle way. Don’t tell them at first and let them see the beauty. Then tell them how it is made, with what kind of materials and why. This way you can maybe change the minds of people who are not so open minded. Some will still not accept it, but others just might. That is what I would do to get bioplastics a bit more known and accepted in the world.
Desiree van Dam
Produce a class zine on the RISO printer together, 2 people will be editors this week. Individual contributions in the form of zine spreads.
Dive into the world of biobased plastic and speculate about future applications using the Material Driven Design Method. The assignment of this week is to make your own bioplastics and use the Material Driven Design (MDD)-method to come up with future applications.
The basic four steps of the method are:
1. Understanding the material
2. Creating material's vision
3. Manifesting material's experience patterns
4. Designing material/product concepts
I wanted to begin with my mold. The mold with a zigzag is an mold in a mold so I wanted the first mold to be stif. So I made an agar agar mix without glycerine. I greased the mold with Vaseline and put the liquid in the mold and it looked really good.
The recipe that I used:
80 ml water
3,2 g agar
I cooked this and then I poured this in the mold. I poured the rest and the foam on the baking paper. I let it dry in front of an open window in the mold for 24 hours and then I let it dry outside the mold for another 24 hours.
The next day I got it out of the mold and it looked really nice. I let it dry a bit longer but than I saw that the corners were curling up. Loes said later that morning that if that happend, you had to put a book on it. So I did that and after 7 hours it was flat again and I took the book off. But the next morning it was competely ruined again and I put it under the book again. Sadly it did not work and now it's really small and dried out. I'm gonna try again with a different recipe.
After that I wanted to do the star and I wanted it to be wobbly. So I wanted to do the Gelatine Foam. I covered the star with vaseline and I sealed the shape with tape. But I found out that the holes in the mold were to small and the liquid dried very fast. Because I first wanted to put it in a small spray bottle first and the put it in the mold. So it all failed horribly and nothing came in the star and the bottle was all dried out and it was a disaster.
The recipe that I used:
60 ml glycerine
60 ml water
45 ml gelatine
6 ml orange hand soap
So I cooked this and then I tried to pour this in the mold. I still let it dry in front of an open window in the mold for 24 hours to see what the result would be, and then I let it dry outside the mold for another 24 hours.
I let everything dry on baking paper and asked the next day if I could reheat it and put it in molds again. Sam and Loes said this was possible and Loes added that it would be nice if I put some sand through it than so I did that. I grabbed the star and looked how much liquid went in. It was literally nothing, what I thought. It was only in the holes and I let it stay there so the liquid wouldn't run out when I put new liquid in the star again. I reheated the blobs from the day before, added some sand and put it in the mold. I still let it dry in front of an open window in the mold for 24 hours to see what the result would be, and then I let it dry outside the mold for another 24 hours.
This time everything worked great and they came out beautifully.
I saw that my classmates were more experimenting with different kind of ingredients. So I started doing that to the next morning. I wanted to experiment with the same recipe but different elements to see how the structure would change it.
The recipe that I used:
1,4 g glycerine
40 ml water
1,6 g agar
Then I had 7 petri dishes, the first one was neutral and the others had all one teaspoon of another material.
Neutral
Sawdust
Eggshells
Honey
Cannelle
Aromat
Grass on a leaf
All the foam of the above mentioned elements together
I cooked the recipe with the elements and put them in a petri dish with the corresponding number on it. I let it dry in front of an open window for 24 hours and then I let it dry outside the petri dish for another 24 hours.
Later I wanted to do something with the fabrics I got and maizana. The fabrics differt from texture. The one most to the left is the most flexible and the one on the right is the most stif. I wanted to give them the most opposite in bioplastic. So the most flexible fabricgets the most brittle bioplastic, and the most stiff fabric gets the most flexible bioplastic. To see what it would do. I poured the rest of the liquid into a Petri dish with PLA strings.
The recipe that I used:
I cooked each recipe one by one with the elements and put fabric in the pan until it was completely covered. Then I put in on baking paper to let it dry. I let it dry in front of an open window for 24 hours. After that the two whose bioplastic was most brittle were dry. The other two were still wet. I kept letting them dry and the one who had the most flexible bioplastig still wasn't dry after almost 48 hours. Also the one in the petri dish with the same substance wouldn't dry.
The next day I got them out and they were perfect. Two started to curl a little bit so I put them under something heavy.
The last one of the fabrics still wasn't dry but I wanted to start looking into the materials, their properties and experience. I went to my dads house to do this with a bit more people than only my mom. It tooks us half an hour to define everything but we did it. Before we started I went through the slides and wrote some keywords down that the others could use. What I especially noticed is that they were really curious about the bioplastics. Everybody wanted to touch it and asked what it was. They especially liked the white blob with pla pieces in it, because it was sticky and weird. Some pieces they liked and others a bit less.
Link to the video about me and my family identifying the properties:
Conclusions:
What I liked is that when I displayed everything on the table when I arrived, my little sisters came up to me with a thousand questions and wanted to touch it. This means they were very curious. They also all liked to guess what it was and what kind of smell it had. The ones that didn't dry looked like slime to them and the other was a squisy (a toy). My youngest sister thought that everything smelled like glue. They wanted to hold it but also made them want to wash their hands. Some they liked to touch and others not so much but that also depended on who hold it. What I can get from these conclusions is that everybody looks at the material different. Sometimes I found a material a bit rough and then they found it smooth, this went for more properties and how they handled the material.
Feedback from Sam:
I coudn't choose so I analyzed more.
I begun with the star. It consist of four materials: glycerine, water, gelatine and orange hand soap. I mixed the construction with sand. The material is flexible and but smells really bad. It is very soft.
Then the sawdust. It consist of three materials: glycerine, water and agar. I mixed the construction with sawdust. The material is flexible and smells neutral. It has a rough texture.
Then the honey. It consist of three materials: glycerine, water and agar. I mixed the construction with honey. The material is flexible and still smells like honey. It has a smooth texture.
Then the camille. It consist of three materials: glycerine, water and agar. I mixed the construction with camille. The material is flexible and still smells like camille. It has a medium texture.
Then the aromat. It consist of three materials: glycerine, water and agar. I mixed the construction with aromat. The material is flexible and smells like bouillon. It has a pretty smooth texture.
At last the fabric. It consist of four materials: glycerine, water, corn stash and vinegar. The material is flexible but hard and smells neutral. It has a hard texture and a bit rough.
After the show and tell Sam asked me to do a fire and water test for a couple more. I did this for the star, camille and honey.
Because the material is soft and squishy, you can maybe use it for a toy. It feels nice and is really flexible, so you can make some kind of shape out of this like an animal. I just don't know if it's good for the kid and it smells bad.
It is strong but shrinks a lot.
Because of the smell it could be some kind of soap. It feels nice and it's glossy. I don't know if it resolves in water and if it's good for your skin.
Due to the fragrance, it can be used as a kind of fragrance tablet. Burning it out spreads a pleasant fragrance throughout the room. I don't know if it burns well tho.
See through and turns green.
It can make an flexible piece of fabric hard and stiff.
This week I learned about making bioplastics and about the difference in the material. I liked standing in the kitchen and mixing all the ingredients, trying out different recipes and making little pieces of bioplastics. I wonder if any kind of the recipes can be really brittle because I did not succeed at that. Next time (if I have the chance) I want to use a different scale that can precisely measure. Now it was really hard to get the exact quantity of what you needed. This probably messed up the outcome, because they are small quantities instead of big. I also learned to really look at the material by looking at its properties and discribing the experience you have with it. I thought it was nice we had some kind of guidelines we could look at. This helped me and my family to distinguish the differences.
I still want to do the zigzag mold again. I think I want to use the same ingredients I used for the star. The material shrinked less and it was really firm. Because of that, I think that will work better.
Document all the steps, tricks, tips, settings and outcomes as described on .
