7 - Coronaweek Transforming: Molding and Casting with Bioplastics

19 - 25 March 2020

THIS WEEK'S ASSIGNMENTS

Assignment 0 - with the entire group

Produce a class zine on the RISO printer together, 2 people will be editors this week. Individual contributions in the form of zine spreads.

Assignment 1 - individual

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.

Make your own bioplastics. Try various recipes, add other materials, play with textures and use your mold. Document your process and findings.
Material properties sheet: Describe the properties of your material
Experiential toolkit: Understand the experience of your material

Future applications: Develop a concept for future applications

Assignment in my own words:

This week we will discover all different sorts of Biobased plastics by ourselves. My plan is to test several bioplastic recepies at home and let it dry for a couple of days. The best bioplastics will be tested in several molds I made during week 5 - Additive Manufacturing.

page5 - Additive Manufacturing

I will let them dry a couple of days and then I'll come up with an fitting future concept for Bioplastics. I also have to make a proporty card for the materials I made.

Testing Bioplastic recepies

For the tests I used this digital cookbook: https://issuu.com/nat_arc/docs/bioplastic_cook_book_3/s/159731

During this project we had to work at home due to the Corona Virus, so we got a little bioplastic survival kit from our teachers.

What was in the Bioplastic survival kit?:

15 g Maizena
7 g AGAR
68 g Gelatine
73 g Glycerin
Petri dishes
Some 'waste' from the Makerslab (Not necassary for making Bioplastics)

What more do you need for making Bioplastics?

Vaseline for the petri dishes
Cooker
Pan
Ladle
Whisk
Measuring cups
Molds
Extra ingredients for the Bioplastics you want to add (Like herbs)

The first thing I did berofre I started cooking is making sure that there is something underneath your workingspace, like a placemat. So the mess you make is easily to clean up.

I gethered all the products which I described above and started to make my first recipe.

The Gelatine animal based Bioplastic (https://issuu.com/nat_arc/docs/bioplastic_cook_book_3/3)

Needs for the most flexible material:

Glycerine 7.2 g
Water 60 ml
Gelatine 12 g

I put everything in a pan cooked it and stirred it until it became more thick.

With a spoon I removed the bubbles and placed it in a different pot. You can also throw it away imidiatly.

I put some flower in a cup and made a mold in it.

I poured the bioplastic in the cup mold and let it dry in the sun for two days.

Day 1

Day 3

Conclusion:

The material has shrunken and the flower really sticks to the material. I find that it still really smells like rotten gelatine. So I don't really like the smell of the recipe. But the texture and strenght is amazing. It's not flexible at all.

AGAR AGAR Foam plant based bioplastic with soap (https://issuu.com/nat_arc/docs/bioplastic_cook_book_3/s/159731)

Needs:

Glycerine 2.7 g
Water 40 ml
Agar 1.6 g
Soap 6 ml (I did'nt really measured the amount of soap I used)

First I put some Vaseline in my Petri dish, so the plastic would come off more easily when it has been dryed.

I cooked the ingredients together and made a real bubble bath in my pan. I poured the foam into the dish and waited a few days. But it never became a usefull material. Maybe my cookings were not so great or I poured in too much soap.

Day 3:

AGAR AGAR plant based Bioplastic with honey (https://issuu.com/nat_arc/docs/bioplastic_cook_book_3/4)

Needs:

Glycerine 5 g
Water 40 ml
Agar 2 g

Honey

First I put some Vaseline in my Petri dish, so the plastic would come off more easily when it has been dryed. I cooked the ingredients together until it became more viscous.

I poured it in the dish and added some honey.

I let it dry in the sun for a couple of days:

Day 1

Day 3

Conslusion:

It has dried really nice! Really love the meterial. It's strong, it's soft and a bit juicy. Really love holding it! Definitly going to use this material in a mold.

AGAR AGAR plant based Bioplastic with yellow curry powder and flowers (https://issuu.com/nat_arc/docs/bioplastic_cook_book_3/4)

Needs:

Glycerine 2 g
AGAR 2 g
Water 40 ml
3 tea spoons of curry powder
A few tiny flowers

First I put some Vaseline in my Petri dish, so the plastic would come off more easily when it has been dried.

I cooked the ingredients and added the curry powder. I mixed it together until it became more viscous.

I poured it in the dish and addes some tiny white flowers that had fallen on the ground. I let the dish dry in the sun for a couple of days.

Day 1

Day 3

I have never seen a bioplastic shrunk so much! It's so tiny but really strong. the flowers make it a little bit more flexible and add a funny feeling to the material. It's a cute form of Bioplastic but I'm not going to pour this into a mold.

Making Bioplastics

3D Mold

I decided to fill the 3D mold with the recipe : AGAR AGAR plant based Bioplastic with honey (https://issuu.com/nat_arc/docs/bioplastic_cook_book_3/4)

Needs:

Glycerine 5 g
Water 40 ml
Agar 2 g
Honey

I will make a little change to the recipe, because the bioplastic is really flexible and I want it to become more stable. So I will use 3 g Glycerine. I won't add the honey. I am curious what the natural material will look like.

This is how I held the 3D Mold together and put in the plastics:

Holding the two parts together:

2. How I added the cooked plastics in the mold:

3. After three days:

It has not really dried yet. I didn't wanted it to schrunk so I layed the mold out of the sun. That's why it hasn't really dried yet. The legs of the robot are really 3D the rest is a bit flat.

End result after one week with a little sun:

The Bioplastic has shrunken a lot! I really think it became like this because I let it in the sun behind a window for like a week.

2D Molds

I will make my 2D model with the gelatine recipe. I will stick the 2D model on top of the dish so the material can't bow. Needs: The Gelatine animal based Bioplastic (https://issuu.com/nat_arc/docs/bioplastic_cook_book_3/3)

Needs for the most flexible material:

Glycerine 7.2 g
Water 60 ml
Gelatine 12 g
Honey

Mold 1: Inked honey

I will use some honey in it for a better smell and more flexible feeling. And I will make the material less flexible by reducing the amount of glycerine to 3 g. I'll add some ink for a marble effect.

The smell is really good! The texture is also great. Flexible but firm.

Mold 2: Perfume

I used some leftovers from the cookings of mold 1 and poured it in a new dish. I really find the gelatine Bioplastic smell like poop, so I wanted to do an experiment with perfume. Lets see how it will react!

The smell is again super nice! Love the texture and it is really firm and a little bit flexible at the same time.

Mold 3 : The 2D Mold with gelatine and some parfume

I used the same recipe as mold 1 and mold 2, but I removed less foam. As I poured it in de the dish I noticed that the material is much more yellow then mold 1 and mold 2. I think if you remove less foam (I might be wrong) it will become more yellow. Also I didn't add any honey, only one spray of parfume.

After one week the material has become really thin, but still firm and not flexible at all.