15 - Project work

This week I went on with testing a lot of interesting recipes.

This weeks recipes

Recipe Clara Davis

Link: Davis, C. (z.d.). CLARA DAVIS / looking for a durable design. Geraadpleegd op 4 mei 2020, van https://clara-davis.com

The Bags from Clara look really interesting! So I wanted to give it a try. Gelatine is not the material I prefer, because of it's animal nature and its smell.

I gave it a try:

I followed the instructions of Clara, by starting to mix the water with the gelatine before I heated it. It already became very foamy! It didn't got better after I heated it up and cooked the recipe.

There was almost only foam! So I just let it cool of for a few minutes and got a spoon to remove the foam from the top of the liquid.

A lot of liquid has dissapeared. I kept the foam and it gave me a nice suprise. The outcome was not useful for my project, but maybe it can help others.

The bowl shape made the liquid dry up as a half ball shap and the top became like foam. Really cool!

After one week of drying the Clara bag material looked really good:

It's a strong and flexible material.

Although I must say that I was really scared that I would might break it. The material can be folded a little, but no much further than shown on the picture. Is it suitable for clothing packaging bags? I am not sure yet. I will test this recipe some more.

Alginate Flexble biofoil with olive oil (Instead of sunflower oil)

So I tested my first Alginate recipe and I decided to go for the one with sunflower oil, but i only had olive oil so I used that.

I soon came to the fact that you really should use an electronic handmixer to mix the alginate, with the glycerine and let it disappear in the heated water. if you want to mix it by hand it will take you a lot of muscle strength and time.

I poured it in a new mold, oven dishes work really good!

Result after one week of drying:

There was no layer to grab, the liquid just became a little structure on the bottom of the oven dish. Really dissapointing. So it's a no for this recipe.

Well I thought.. In week 16 I figured out that it was a thin layer which was really nice and strong!

It just came loose fromt the bottom, that's how I found out that there was a real layer on the bottom.

Alginate Flexible Biofoil 2

This recipe looks really clear. Don't forget to spray some Calcium Chloride mix (10% CC 90% water) over the alginate materials after one or two days so it won't shrink:

The result of this recipe after 3 days of drying:

As you can see the material hasn't completely dried yet, that's why it's very fragile. But in the next few days the material kept being fragile and really sticky! It feels good and I feel like alginate can be a good plastic bags if it would be less sticky and fragile.

Alginate flexible thin bio foil

This Biofoil is more like it! Really thin, flexible and strong. Still a bit sticky, but I feel like the stickyness has a connection with the drying process. A few days later the stikyness would have been reduced. But it's still sticky. If you want to have nice and clear sheets, you'll have to be carefull that the sheet won't get stuck on itself.