FOAM FOR MATERIAL ACTIVISTS
CONTENTS 2
SUMMARY
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PROBLEM
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HOW TO MAKE HONEYFOAM
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INTRO AND ISSUES
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REFRAMING MOMENTS
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ISSUES
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FURTHER APPLICATIONS
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INSPIRATIONS
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RECOURCES
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MOTIVATION
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TRAIL OF EVIDENCE
OUTCOMES
I made a new bioplastic from gelatin and honey.
I am Laura Velgersdijk and I researched how a lightweight renewable material source can be used to protect heavy and fragile products during transport. Weight is an important aspect of the transport industry and extra weight from packaging is kept at a minimum. This is why packaging is often made from plastics since they are a lightweight material. The material for the packaging is usually used once and then discarded. I wanted to find a more environmentally friendly alternative for the disposable plastics and choose to try this by using bioplastics as a substitute. I wanted to make a new material made from bioplastic that is lightweight and possibly stretchable. I found a material made from gelatin and honey. This honeyfoam bioplastic is a thicker, stronger and more stretchable bioplastic.
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How can a lightweight renewable material source be used to protect heavy and fragile products during transport ?
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INTRO Weight is an important aspect of the transport industry. Vehicles can only carry a maximum amount of weight. Meaning the heavier a product is the less products can be transported at a time and the pricier it becomes to transport these products. This is why the extra weight packaging gives to products must be kept as low as possible.
ISSUES I wanted to see how I could give fragile products good protection during transport. Currently, the transport industry uses a lot of paper as a filling material, but plastic / styrofoam is still chosen for heavy or fragile products because paper can’t guarantee the same amount of protection for those kinds of products. This plastic is used once and then discarded immediately. Plastic is a nonrenewable material and this industry causes a lot of unnecessary plastic waste.
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ISSUES PROBLEMS WITH PLASTIC PACKAGING Plastic packaging makes up around 40% of plastic waste in the Netherlands. Only half of that is being recycled. The other half is burned for energy production. Not all plastics are recycled because not all plastics are actually recyclable. So are thin plastics, such as foils to cover sauce dishes or the thin tray packaging for mushrooms, not being recycled because they are too thin for waste companies to make a new sheet of material out of. This also includes “singleuse� plastics such as straws.
Styrofoam is used to package foods and made into packing peanuts as a filler for packages. Styrofoam is difficult to recycle because it takes up a lot of space relative to its weight. Shipping it to a recycler does not provide much return on investment so the styrofoam usually ends up with normal trash.
Furthermore, black plastic cannot always be recycled. Plastic recycling is done at a waste sort company. These companies can distinguish the types of plastic by using infrared detection. The plastic reflects the infrared light and from that reflection the system can read which plastic it is and where it needs to go. This system works great for all colors, except for the color that absorbs everything: black. Nowadays, an infrared technique has been developed that can also recognize and sort black plastic for recycling, but not all sorting companies have this technique in-house.
5 Photo 1: plastic mushroom packaging
Photo 2: styrofoam food packaging
Photo 3: black plastic tray
“The creation of something light is not just a matter of choosing a low-density material.”
INSPIRATIONS Since I wanted to make a new material that is lightweight, I looked for inspiration in the production of food products and how they were made airier. How are coockies like maltesers made? Or what is the best way to beat whipped cream? The ingredients and methods used in these food products helped me to find the best methods in the bioplastics. I found further inspiration in how designers take on this problem in Ed van Hinte’s book ‘Designing lightness’ (2020). This taught me how nature makes shapes in response to weight and stress. Bioplastic cookbooks have also helped me to make a basic bioplastic recipes. Cookbooks such as Miriam Ribul’s ‘Recipes for Material Activism’ (2014) and the ‘Bioplastic Cook Book’ by Margaret Dunne (2018).
Photo 4: page from Designing lightness
Foam like materials are filled with a lot of air. This makes the material a lot more lightweight than it actually is. Foam can be made by blowing a gas through a liquid substance. Both plastics and metals can be made this way. The gas constributes to the structure making foam a two material kind of material.
Another way to make a material appear lighter than it is is to make them in a string like structure. It is not a less solid form than the foam is but can be very strong.
And foremost my fellow students have given a lot of inspiration with their bioplastic methods and applications.
6 Photo 5: Miriam Ribuls nonwovens
I started this project because
I am against the singleuse disposable culture we’ve created. From paper coffee cups to product packaging, we’re creating a lot of unnecessary waste. For almost all products that are bought there’s a lot of material, like packaging material, that immediately goes to waste. One of the most common waste material is plastic. Plastic is a non-renewable material that’s broadly used in different kinds of products. With this project I wanted to create a more sustainable solution to plastic products. I believe we can replace a lot of plastic with renewable materials.
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OUTCOMES Photo 6: honeyfoam plate
While experimenting with bioplastics I discovered a bioplastic material made from gelatin and honey, making a honeyfoam bioplastic. The honey is used as a plasticizer alongside glycerin and makes the bioplastic thicker and stronger. The most redeeming qualities of the honeyfoam are it’s stretch, it can stretch up to one and a half time it’s size. It can also be pressed together to half the size. The material is waterproof but, will temporarily get slightly soggy from too much exposure to water. It is heat resistant to temperatures up to 50 degrees.
Photo 7: honeyfoam sheet
SHAPES Honeyfoam can be made in many different shapes. It can be made in blocks, sheets, strings etc. while holding the same qualities. It can be made big and small.
Photo 8: honeyfoam block
Photo 9: honeyfoam string
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SHAPES Honeyfoam can be webbed. When touched while still hot the honeyfoam will stick like chewing gum to an object. The web is strong but can tear easily because the web strings are constantly under pressure from the stetch.
Photo 10 and 11: honeyfoam web
Photo 12 and 13: honeyfoam grains
Honeyfoam can also be made in small grains. the grains are soft and can be pressed together without permanent deformation into a flat grain.
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Photo 14, 15, 16 and 17: stretching a honeyfoam
STRETCH Honeyfoam can stretch up to one and a half time it’s size when stretching strings. Stretching strings with too much pressure however can break a string in two. Solid forms can also be stretched substantially. These forms will less likely tear, they are relatively strong.
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WATERPROOF Honeyfoam is not entirely water resistant, it gets slightly soggy after being submerged in water for a long period of time. It also get slightly bigger in size because it absorbs the water. However it will not break down nor will there form any tears in the material. It takes around a day to fully dry, depending on the exact size of the honeyfoam. It also floats on water.
Photo 19 and 20: honeyfoam before and after being ecposed to 75 degree heat for 5 minutes.
HEATPROOF
Photo 18: honeyfoam after one day of water exposure.
Honeyfoam is heat resistant up until a temperature of 50 degrees. While exposing it to 75 degree heat it melted within minutes. When it’s exposed to 75 degree heat or more for longer periods of time it will boil and become hard.
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Photo 21, 22, 23 and 24: honeyfoam inprints - before and after
Photo 25 and 26: honeyfoam casted with a shell
INPRINTS
STICKINESS
I used a leaf to make an inprint on the honeyfoam. The leaf was pressed into hot foam. The inprint has quite a lot of detail, however it has not made a complete inprint of the leaf. Air bubbles will form between the object and the honeyfoam when the object is pressed into it. However, when casted on a inprint, the honeyfoam will completely replicate it without air bubbles.
Objects that are stuck against or in the honeyfoam while casting can be easily removed without tearing the foam or breaking the object. Honeyfoam can be removed from materials as glass, metal, ceramics and paper very easily, however it will stick to cardboard slightly and can tear when removed.
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CUTTING Thin pieces of honeyfoam are easily cuttable by a sharp object like a knife or scissors. It will cut off very smoothly with sharp edges. Thicker pieces are harder to cut as the cutting tools will get resistence from stretching qualities of the material.
POKING When poking the honeyfoam with a sharp object like a needle it will very easily break through the material. When the needle is pulled out however the material will stretch back into place and the poked area is barely visable anymore.
Photo 30 and 31: poking honeyfoam
Photo 10 and 11: honeyfoam web
13 Photo 27, 28 and 29: cutting honeyfoam
HOW TO MAKE HONEYFOAM INSPIRATION The honeyfoam recipe is based on Margaret Dunne’s gelatin foam recipe from her Bioplastic Cook Book. Her recipe is made from 60g glycerin, 60ml water, 45ml gelatin and 6ml soap. The different qualities of this recipe and the honeyfoam is the thickness and strength of the material. The gelatin foam is a lot less strong and thick than the honeyfoam. This makes it tear easier when sharp objects are pressed against it, but it can also tear easily when pressing on it too hard. The material bounces back a lot more when pressed on it and the surface has a lot of air holes from bubbles.
There is also one different tool used in the hoenyfoam recipe. I noticed when i first started to make foam recipes that the bottom half of the foam will often be solid while the top half is foam. The foam is too heavy and presses the lower half together making all the air disappear, which makes it a solid form. To prevent this I tried to speed up the cooling proces by storing the freshly casted foam in the freezer. This way the foam has no time to press the air out of the bottom half because it’s already become hard.
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HOW TO MAKE HONEYFOAM TUTORIAL Tools The necessary tools for making bioplastic are a pot, spoon or fork, a stove, a mixer, a measuring cup and a mold or glass/acrylic plate.
Method Mix the gelatine and water together and let it swell for a few minutes, and do the same to the honey and glycerine. Mix both mixtures together and heat it until the glyxerine has fully disolved. Add the soap to the mix and use a mixer for a few minutes. The mix is done when it starts to stick to the hooks of the mixer. Cast the mixture into a mold or glass plate and let it cool down in the freezer. Note that once the material has been mixed, it can be heated again without losing any ‘foamness’ and be recasted.
Ingredients The needed ingredients are 100ml gelatin, 100ml glycerin, 50ml honey, 50ml water and +/- 5ml soap. Optional Honey does mold after a period of time, to prevent this add +/- 5ml of an antibacterial to the mix.
COST It costs around 10 euros to make one liter of honeyfoam. The recipe uses relatively much glycerin which makes it the most expensive ingredient of them all.
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REFRAMING MOMENTS HOW I GOT HERE I started the project using starch bioplastics because they were the most easily disposable of the bioplastics I could make. However, I found it hard to make a lightweight material out of starch and looked elsewhere after experimenting with them for a few weeks.
While exploring the possibilities of gelatin I read to use more than one plasticizer, and that honey mixed with glycerin could give a far richer effect to materials. After trying this I got to a foamlike material that is also strong and stretchable. From all my material tests this was the one I found most interesting with broad possibilities for packaging but also other uses.
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FURTHER APPLICATIONS EXAMPLE OF A FURTHER APPLICATION Honeyfoam can be used for many different things. It can be used as filler material in tranport of fragile or heavy products. In present-day a lot of filler packaging has been replaced from styrofoam to paper, except for fragile or heavy products. These are still packaged with styrofoam, because paper can not guarantee the same amount of protection.
The bioplastic has foam like qualities and it able to guarantee the same amount of protection as styrofoam is. However, styrofoam is a lot lighter weight than the bioplastic. Weight is an important factor in transport which is why it needs to be designed differently on lightness. An example is to space out the material. By seperating the material and tying it together there’s a lot less material used. The protection guarantee will drop slightly but the weight will drop by a lot.
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I am still looking for further applications:
What would you do with this material?
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EXAMPLES
RECOURCES
RECIPES Bioplastic Cook Book https://issuu.com/nat_arc/docs/bioplastic_ cook_book_3 Miriam Ribul https://issuu.com/miriamribul/docs/miriam_ ribul_recipes_for_material_a Bioplastic - Tools and Recipes https://issuu.com/johanviladrich/docs/ bioplastic Research Book Bioplastic https://issuu.com/juliettepepin/docs/ bookletbioplastic Alginate folie by Loes Bogers https://class.textile-academy.org/2020/loes. bogers/files/recipes/alginatefoil/ The CHEMARTS Cookbook h t t p s : // s h o p . a a l t o . f i / m e d i a / f i l e r _ public/3b/bf/3bbf53d7-347a-4ca4a6b1-2479cfde39c2/aaltoartsbooks_ thechemartscookbook.pdf
Make your own bioplastics https://www.instructables.com/id/ Make-Your-Own-Bioplastics/
Biofabrication materials https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Lm147nvW kxxmPf5Oh2wU5a8eonpqHCVc/view Food for thought (apprentenship) h t t p : // w w w . d a n i e l l e w i l d e . c o m / w p content/uploads/2018/10/SDU-Design_ FoodForThought_24June2018.pdf
INFORMATION Bioplastic cookbook for ritual healing from petrochemical landscapes by Tiare Ribeaux http://bioplastic-cookbook.schloss-post.com Materials Experiments Catalogue https://issuu.com/jakeaaroncohen/docs/ materials_catalogue_jic14 Van der Meulen, J. (2018). Zwart plastic is niet recyclebaar‌ van https://www.nedvang. nl/feit-of-fabel/ook-zwart-plastic-kanworden-gerecycled/ Straver, F. (2019, may 19). Zo’n 15 procent van de totale hoeveelheid plastics wordt gerecycled - dat moet beter van https:// www.trouw.nl/duurzaamheid-natuur/zon-15-procent-van-de-totale-hoeveelheidplastics-wordt-gerecycled-dat-moet-beter ~b974549f/?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fw ww.google.nl%2F
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Trail of Evidence
The trail of evidence describes key shifting moments from my proces making bioplastics. The different colors in background indicate the different learning objectives. White is for design research skills, yellow is for maker skills and attitude and orange is for collaborative learning.
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Week
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One of the biggest problems with plastics are the single use products. The plastic has a short lifespan and has a big chance of ending up in the ocean. There is an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic in the ocean today. This could be prevented by producing less plastic products, especially plastics that are badly recyclable.
Week
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Laura Velgersdijk
Photo
Insight Week
Laura Velgersdijk
Question What household tools are available to me to make bioplastics? Using household tools makes it possible for anyone to replicate my experiments.
Laura Velgersdijk
I have gotten a lot of inspiration from the brainstorm session about the three themes. I am going to try to find an application for a bioplastic as mentioned in theme 2.
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Insight
Week
11 Foam peanuts are a are a loose fill packaging material commonly used to keeping products protected from damage. They were developed in the 60’s and made from 100% virgin1 polystyrene resin. These days the color indicates the material: white foam peanuts indicate they’re made from 70% or more virgin rasin, green indicates 70% recycled resin and pink indicates a antistatic agent2 has been used in the peanuts. Polysteryne is hard to recycle because it takes up a lot of space relative to its weight. Shipping it to a recycler does not provide much return on investment.
Laura Velgersdijk
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Virgin material is raw material that has not been produced before.
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An antistatic agent is a compound used for treatment of materials or their surfaces in order to reduce or eliminate buildup of static electricity.
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Week
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Foam pinda’s are a product used to protect during transportation and has slim to no sustainable substitutes. It is also possible to make a bioplastic alternative for this product? Currently the foam pinda’s are made from styrofoam which is recyclable but it does not happen very often because it’s not very profitable.
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Idea
Question Week
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Feedback tips: What kind of products do I want to protect? And what are the criteria for these (price, volume, material, weight)? How are they disposed of?
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Laura Velgersdijk
Laura Velgersdijk
Question Week
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Feedback tips: Packing peanuts are lightweight and filled with air; how are other products like this made? Like Cheetos or Maltesers? Or what makes baking products rise?
Laura Velgersdijk
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Insight
Photo Week
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Bioplastic needs a solvent, a plasticizer, and a polymer. Water is a commonly used solvent. Glycerin, honey and sugar can be used as plasticizers. Alginate, gelatin, starch and agar are commonly used polymers.
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Laura Velgersdijk
Photo Week
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Quote What am I doing experiments for? What am I trying to achieve with the experiments? [Yuri’s feedback]
Laura Velgersdijk
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Bioplastic needs a solvent, a plasticizer, and a polymer. Water is a commonly used solvent. Glycerin, honey and sugar can be used as plasticizers. Alginate, gelatin, starch and agar are commonly used polymers.
Laura Velgersdijk
A video explains far more than words. To really show material properties it’s best to add a video to every material.
Week
Laura Velgersdijk
Sketch
Idea Week
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How can the peanut shape be made for the bioplastics? And is a peanut the best shape to use? Are there other shapes that will also be good for a lightweight ďŹ ller object?
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Laura Velgersdijk
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Idea
Laura Velgersdijk
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Frustration: Making foam bioplastics will not go as smoothly as I expected. Only the top half of the material will be slightly foam like, the down half stays solid when it’s dried. I can try using a blender and got the tip to immediately freeze the material once mixed to trap the air.
Laura Velgersdijk
Frustration: The starch recipes will oftentimes tear when I make them thicker. I got the tip to use more glycerin or possibly a different plasticizer.
Week
Question What are important material properties I want to document for the documentation of the packing peanut? What are the most essential aspects of this material?
Laura Velgersdijk
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Insight
Insight Week
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Using a mixer instead will bring substantially more air into the bioplastic than a whisk can and will completely transform the recipe into a foam mixture.
Week
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Laura Velgersdijk
Insight
Photo Week
Laura Velgersdijk
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Anoush and Kim told me about the foam that develops during gelatin bioplastics. The recipe is one from the Bioplastic Cookbook by Margaret Dunne. I’m going to try this out and compare this to my previous findings.
Laura Velgersdijk
The potato starch foam recipe has perfect qualities when it’s just mixed and frozen but will become liquid once unfrozen. This would work perfectly on the Antarctica but unfortunately not here.
Week
16 Using two different plasticizers will give a different affect to the material. Using a combination of honey and glycerin made my material stronger and thicker than when using only glycerin. Laura Velgersdijk
Insight
Insight Week
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Once the gelatin foam has been mixed, it can be heated again for casting without the material becoming less foam like.
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Laura Velgersdijk
Insight
Photo Week
Laura Velgersdijk
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During the workshop product photography I got some great inspiration for how I want my product to be photographed. Elise gave us some great tips on how to tell a story with our products.
Laura Velgersdijk
When making a solid sheet of the bioplastic it will be restricted in bending. Making either tears or building it up in smaller pieces will give it more freedom to move and will also make it lighter.
Week
18 Frustration: While trying to make a cube the upper half collapsed. I think this might be caused by the fact that the upper side had nothing to hold on to (whereas all the other sides where boxed in by the mold). I’m going to try making another cube with the top side also boxed in and see if it will not collapse again.
Laura Velgersdijk
By Laura Velgersdijk Minor Makerslab 23.06.2020
