Materiom
Find out more about an open-source recipes and data on materials made from abundant sources of natural ingredients
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Find out more about an open-source recipes and data on materials made from abundant sources of natural ingredients
Last updated
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By Pilar Bolumburu and Zoë Powell
Welcome to Materiom!
What is Materiom? Materiom is a platform that provides open-source recipes and data on materials made from abundant sources of natural ingredients. By making this knowledge open, we accelerate materials development and lower barriers to entry in materials markets around the world. Our mission is to enable everyone everywhere, to participate in the next generation of materials. We work with companies, cities and communities in creating and selecting materials sourced from locally abundant biomass that are part of the local ecologies to promote a regenerative circular economy.
As a team of material scientists, researchers and creatives, how do we do it? Our three pillars are a core foundation of knowledge sharing:
Responsible Material Development: Our library features open source recipes for materials made from abundant biomass that can be locally sourced. Recipes use life-friendly chemistry methods and nutrients such as sugars, proteins, fats and common minerals, making them biodegradable by design.
Open Data: The properties of our materials are measured in laboratories so that they can be compared to materials on the market. Data can be used to identify sustainable alternatives for product design.
Community: Recipes are contributed by our international community of designers, scientists, engineers and artists. They are licensed as open-source to encourage rapid advancement and widespread use. Materiom hHubs are centres of regional expertise, creating a feedback loop between local sourcing and market application, and our international network for materials R&D.
A year on
Since last year's book 'Fab City: The Mass Distribution of (almost) Everything, Materiom's network has grown to include many more biomaterial researchers who are building upon the groundwork of the Founders Alysia Garmulewicz & Liz Corbin. The core team has grown and now includes researchers with a background in chemistry, circular economy, material science and design. We all share the distributed design ethos from the Fab Lab Network. Two of our new team members are designers: Pilar Bolumburu, who is a graduate from the Fab Academy in Santiago, Chile and Zoë Powell, who is a graduate from the Fabricademy in Barcelona, Catalunya. Materiom now works from London, Santiago, Amsterdam and Boston with the focus on building communities in these cities and beyond. We focus on hands-on learning via biomaterial workshops with communities and businesses at events across the UK, Spain, France, Denmark, Chile and the USA.
What’s next?
We are developing several core Materiom hubs, which will focus their research on waste resources and biomass, developing new recipes for bioplastics, biocomposites, binders and coatings. We are also partnering with universities, scientists and engineers who are testing the properties of these innovative materials such as rate of degradation, mechanical strength, elasticity, and gas and water barrier properties . This promises to bring locally developed biomaterials into the realm of industry and open up conversations within business. This work will be supported by a new approach for mapping material flows of abundant sources of waste and biomass within municipalities, cities and ecoregions. Our focus is on the systems and solutions needed to develop a regenerative circular materials economy that everyone can participate in.
Do you want to try making your own bioplastic?
We began by starting with one of the most straightforward recipes to follow on the Materiom website, so if you'd like to have a go, follow the recipe below:
Made by Alysia Garmulewicz, who sourced the recipe from Green Plastics, by E.S. Stevens.
Collection: Seaweed recipes
Process: Cast, Cooked, Air Dried.
License: CC BY-SA 4.0
Difficulty: 1 of 5
Tools:
Cooker/stove/hotplate
Teaspoon
Measuring Cup
Cooking pot
Scale
Thermometer
Stirring spoon
Flat surface
Composition:
4 grams Agar Agar
2.5 ml Glycerol
430 ml Water
Properties:
Tensile Strength, Ultimate 4.58 E-06 MPa
Tensile Strength, Yield 3.17 E-06 MPa
Modulus of Elasticity (Young's) 5.42 E-05 MPa
Method:
Step one: Mix all of the ingredients in a pot in the amounts above, and stir until agar and glycerol dissolve in the water.
Step two: Put the pot on the stove and heat the mixture to 95C or to just below boiling. Keep stirring the whole time. When it reaches 95C (or begins to froth), remove from the heat. Keep stirring and skim off any of the froth from the top with a spoon. Any froth left on the surface will cause air bubbles in your plastic sheet.
Step three: Pour liquid onto a flat surface or mould. A silicon sheet works well with a frame (you can cut this from scrap wood), or lay a silicone sheet on a baking tray with edges. Let dry for 1-2 days, depending on temperature and humidity levels.
