Materiom

Instead of asking "how do we manage waste better?", what if we asked: "what if this wasn't waste at all?"

Materials sourced from biomass — agricultural residues, food processing byproducts, industrial side streams — can be designed from the outset to return safely to biological systems. Waste from one process can become feedstock for another.

Many bio-based feedstocks are abundant and largely untapped; what's lagging is the shared knowledge infrastructure to move from lab research to scale at speed. That gap is closing though - and the question for materials innovators is shifting from “can we do this?” to “how quickly can we move?”

Are you turning waste into materials? Tell us what you're working on.

BioBased MaterialsInnovation

1. Mussel alginate composite by Carolina Pacheco

2. Sugarcane bagasse and agar by Julia Steketee:

3. Coffee composite by Pilar Bolumburu

4. Apple pectin leather by Alicia Valdés Selbach

5. Rice husk leather by Mary-Kate Moroney

6. Avocado pit | Gelatin bioplastic by Julia Brière

When Sofía Perales began explore waste-based materials, eggshells didn’t immediately captivate her. They were hardly the futuristic feedstock designers dream about.

But a global pandemic and a myriad of experiments later, eggshells became her way into the complex, inspiring (and sometimes sobering) world of bio-based materials.

Today, Sofía splits her time between research in polymer processing, lecturing materials science, and working with eggshell waste to create sculptures, 3D-prints and tiles.

By publishing her work on Materiom, Sofía reinforces her strongly held belief that materials innovation is faster when knowledge is shared.

“My main purpose was to share information… When someone asks for my recipe, I can send them to Materiom and say, ‘Please, experiment and improve it.”

Read the full story and check out Sofia's work via the link in our bio.

Researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have created a sustainable, scalable, and safe-fire-retardant material made of pure mycelium.

When the material is exposed to radiant heat or fire, the contact layer of the mycelium turns into char, which thermally protects the underlying layers. Unlike many fire-retardant coatings, the mycelium acts as a non-toxic buffer.

Find out more here:

Fire-retardant mycelium material - MaterialDistrict Researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, created a sustainable, scalable, and safe-fire-retardant material made of pure mycelium. Mycelium is the name for the root system of mushrooms. It is an up-and-coming material for insulation and acoustic purposes. The difference with the curren...

MycoWorks - a mushroom biofibre firm - is opening a 136,000 square-foot commercial-scale production plant, the first of its kind. Employing more than 350 people, MycoWorks will be able to supply their luxury partners with millions of square feet of Reishi per year. Reishi is a new category of premium, natural material that features the strength, durability, and hand-feel of some of the finest animal leathers with lower environmental impact.

"There have been two barriers to the decades-long search for a luxury leather alternative: product quality and scalable manufacturing. In 2016 we eliminated the first by introducing Reishi to the world, and in September 2023 we are answering the question of scale with this state-of-the-art facility in South Carolina." - Matt Scullin, CEO of MycoWorks.

Read more here:

MycoWorks to Open World’s First Commercial-Scale Fine Mycelium™ Plant In September - MycoWorks 136,000 Square Foot Facility to Scale Production of Reishi™

🌍 Positive News 🌎

Since UK retailers started charging for single-use plastic bags in 2015, figures show a 98% drop in their use. Environmental campaigners are calling out the government to learn from its own successes amid fear that other measures have been delayed.

This reduction shows that inserting a plastic tax at the point of sale is a good policy for reducing consumer plastic bag use. However, the data doesn't include sales of bags for life, or break down the distribution between in-store shopping and home delivery.

While a positive result, this is just one small step in a much longer journey to tackle .

Read more here:

Supermarket plastic bag charge has led to 98% drop in use in England, data shows Ministers urged to learn from success of single-use bag fee, amid criticism that other measures have been delayed

⭐ Innovator Spotlight ⭐

Noriware is the next up and coming start-up that is unlocking the potential of to create .

Their Norifilm is a flexible packaging material offering the same texture and stability of a conventional plastic film, but differs in its durability and footprint on the environment. It's made from 100% natural ingredients and is biodegradable and home compostable.

Find out more:

Packaging | Noriware Noriware wants to revolutionize the packaging industry by offering a truly sustainable, home-compostable alternative to traditional plastic, through unlocking the potential of seaweed. In doing so, we want to be the leader in transparency to motivate the industry to become more sustainable.

PEF - Poly Ethylene Furanoate

PEF is a 100% biobased drop-in replacement for petrochemical PET packaging materials. PEF, like PET, can be used to make plastic bottles, films, and other packaging materials that are widely used in the personal care industry.

PEF has been referred to as the next-generation polyester because it has better mechanical and barrier properties. What's more, a Life Cycle Analysis done by Avantium (Netherlands) claims that the use of PEF in a bottle is expected to reduce GHG emissions by 33% over the lifecycle of the bottle. However, mass acceptance in the market is yet to be proven.

📚 Resources:
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You can now apply to the 2023!

This is a remarkable opportunity to showcase your localities' best impact-driven practices to the global community, including your projects, products, services, public policies, urban strategies, neighbourhood transformation, community empowerment actions, or other types of initiatives dedicated to regenerative futures.

By entering the Fab City Awards, you will actively contribute to creating a global repository of best practices that address urban and rural challenges, putting your initiative on the global stage. In addition, by participating, your locality can gain well-deserved recognition for its outstanding contributions to the Fab City movement.

The awards serve as a catalyst for collaboration, knowledge sharing, and inspiration within the Fab City global network, furthering our collective vision of sustainable, regenerative, and self-sufficient living through local production and global connections.

Entries are open until 31st August.

Find out more here:

Fab City Awards An international contest that awards the three best initiatives from Fab Cities, Regions or Nations that advance the Fab City vision

Scaling is designed to inform production and supply network development for materials made from renewable sources of biomass.

Companies utilising renewable biomass are directly reliant on ecosystem services, and their operations have a direct impact on ecosystem health and resilience. It's therefore critical for companies to scale in a way that regenerates, rather than degrades, social-ecological systems.

What key principles do you think define the regenerative scaling framework? Comment below!

is a plant-based gelatine derived from seaweed. It is mainly used in the food industry as a gelling agent, emulsifier, thickener and stabiliser for different foods. But it is also an incredibly useful biopolymer used to develop biodegradable films.

🌎 Sources: Agar is mainly extracted from the cell walls of red algae, such as Gelidum and Gracilaria which are widespread nearby the coasts of Chile, India, Japan, Madagascar, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Spain, Philippines, Portugal, and the southern United States.

💫 Properties: The properties of algae can vary greatly depending on the seaweed species, environmental conditions, harvest period and the extraction method. It's main characteristics include high biodegradability, odourless, and translucent - making it ideal for material development.

🍴 Applications: Agar can create transparent and brittle film-like materials that are easy to biodegrade due to their nature of bonding with water molecules.

💡 Innovators: Sway, Notpla, ZeroCircle, Noriware

📚 Resources:
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📸 2nd Image: Sway x Ales Grey

"We need more early adopters to drive the economy of scale. The technologies exist, but they are not being utilised because they aren't as efficient yet, or people just don't understand the potential. We need momentum, some early adopters to buy into it. That will really drive development." - Evan Gilman, University of Maine.

A true bioeconomy is a long way from fruition, but increased attention to and funding of the field is creating momentum. Read more about how bio-based products are gaining momentum here: https://buff.ly/3Yypxm3

From Lab to Market: Bio-Based Products Are Gaining Momentum Propelled by government investment and shareholder demand, manufacturers are pushing to get bio-based products into the marketplace. These new materials — made from plants, fungi, and microbes — aim to replace those that contain toxins and are difficult to recycle or reuse.