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Biomaterials can be created from what you already have at home, or with ingredients readily available at the grocery store.
In this lesson, we will creating a laser cut mold. We will be using 2 recipes to cook the bio materials.
1) Agar agar
2) Water
3) Glycerol
4) Food coloring
5) Gelatin
6) Weighing scale
7) Measuring cups
8) Spatula
9) Induction cooker
A laser cutter will be used to cut our acrylic mold. Using food ingredients, we will be making our own biomaterial.
1) I used Coreldraw to design my laser cut file.
2) I stacked the acrylics to create the mold. I created the 4 holes to help me to align them accurately and tightened together with screws and nuts so that there is no gaps when I apply the acrylic glue to them.
Agar Bioplastic is made by mixing water, glycerine and agar-agar powder. They form a plastic substitute that can be cast in very thin films, resembling plastic foils. The casted material is never elastic but is flexible.
We are using the following recipe:-
measuring the ingredient
Mix the water, agar and glycerol together in a pot. Stir until the agar and glycerol have dissolved. Cook over medium heat and stir until the solution starts to boil and becomes viscous.
Pouring into molds.
It took 5 days to set.
2nd recipe
It took 2 days to set.
The results
My thoughts
We notice that the bio materials shrink in terms of size and thickness.
Look what happened after 1 week!
These recipes can be altered by adding more glycerol for a rubbery finish, or less glycerol for a more rigid finish.
We also notice that the materials were “sweating”. A search in google reviewed that
bioplastic made with Agar agar may ‘sweat’ when in humid weather. To prevent this, the tip is to add a little bit of corn starch (corn flour) with Agar agar into the liquid that you are cooking it in.
We have to know the characteristics of the bio material that we produces so that we can and think of the appropriate application for it. We had a fun time exploring and making bio materials. We hope that we have more time to explore different amount of ingredients and different recipes.