Turn your bathroom into a sustainable piece of art with 3D printed tiles

If you’re redesigning your bathroom but you’re bored with the regularly-designed tiles that you see in the market, this 3D printed tile design may be for you. That is, if you don’t mind having some organism looking creatures permanently displayed while you’re taking a bath. It is sustainable and biodegradable so that’s a major bonus if you’re concerned with things like that.

Designer: bioMATTERS

The MYCO-ALGA is an interior tiling system that is made from natural and organic waste that have been upcycled together with actual living organisms. There are different sustainable processes involved in coming up with this including designing them digitally, 3D printing, growing the organisms, enriching them with bio-pigments, fabrication, etc. It begins with the waste materials being ground into a paste-like substrate as a foundation.

Once it has been turned into paste, it is then 3D printed into customized shapes and for two weeks, they are placed and cultivated in a controlled environment so that the mycelium turns into the thing that binds the material together. They are then placed in convection ovens and as they “bake”, they turn into lightweight materials but at the same time, they become strong and rigid. The bio-pigments from the harvested algae which are now gel are then applied to the tiles.

The tiles are definitely unique looking and can be a conversation piece when you have people visit your bathroom. They were designed to specifically look like organisms are crawling all over your space. The mosaic-like design with the non-repeating patterns are visually striking and 100% sustainable.

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Otrivin Air Lab turns CO2 and air pollution into beautiful 3D printed products

CO2 or carbon dioxide is often portrayed as the villain, at least for humans and animals, but it is an essential part of the circle of life. Plants need it to live, and these same plants produce oxygen that we, in turn, need. Air pollution, on the other hand, isn’t so beneficial, and the global state of the environment means there’s an overabundance of unclean air and CO2. The first solution that would probably come to most people’s minds is inventing technology that would magically purify the air. But what if we could actually turn the tables around and use these harmful elements for something good? That’s the idea and process being exposed in a living showroom and bio-design workshop that practically turns air pollution into sustainable products.

Designer: Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto (ecoLogicStudio)

Air purifiers have become trendy these days, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic nearly crippled the world. These devices, however, might be good for humans or even pets, but they have a negative impact on the environment in the long run, particularly because of their carbon footprint. Mother Nature, however, already has its own tiny air purifiers, and not only can we use them to clean the air, but we can also even harvest them to create products that won’t harm the planet in turn.

That’s the proposition that the Otrivin Air Lab interactive exhibit in Londo is trying to present, and it’s roping in visitors not only to observe the process but to actively take part in it. The space is enclosed in a lightweight and reversible timber structure, and one of the walls holds twelve “photobioreactors.” These are tall glass vessels filled with ten liters of living photosynthetic microalgae that absorb CO2 and release oxygen while also producing biomass in the process. Each day, that wall can take in 240g of CO2 and spit out 180g of oxygen as well as 84g of biomass.

Visitors to the lab can take part in the daily harvesting of that biomass product that is then turned into bioplastics, bio-rubbers, and 3D printing filaments. These raw materials can then be used to create biodegradable and sustainable products, like vases and even stools. Some might find it a bit unsettling, but the fact that you are sitting on what is practically CO2 and air pollution should feel empowering. We might not be able to completely eradicate unclean air, but we can at least turn them into something harmless and useful.

The lab is intended to showcase the viability and sustainability of a circular economy, turning air waste into a sellable product that will eventually find its way back to the Earth in a clean and safe manner. And to take it full circle, nasal healthcare company Otrivin, who collaborated on this exhibit, will be using this process to create its Fibonacci NetiPot nasal sprays. Each NetiPot supposedly removes 15g of carbon dioxide from the air, driving home the importance of clean air using a product design to help people breathe better.

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The world’s largest algae growth pond uses nature-based technology to capture CO2 emissions

Brilliant Planet, a renewable energy semiconductor manufacturing company, operates a 30,000-square-meter production facility where they capture CO2 emissions via the largest algae growth pond in the world.

Algae is like magic. Consumed by humans as a superfood, algae promotes healthy skin, produces essential amino acids, and contains Omega-3 fatty acids. Then, on a larger scale, when algae are grown in the sunlight, the plants absorb carbon dioxide, like any other plant, and release oxygen into the atmosphere.

Designer: Brilliant Planet

For higher productivity rates, algae can be grown in controlled areas to absorb large amounts of CO2 and convert it to biomass and oxygen via photosynthesis. Brilliant Planet, a UK-based renewable energy semiconductor manufacturing company, is tapping into the magic of algae to create an affordable means of “permanently and quantifiably sequestering carbon at the gigaton scale,” as the company describes.

In 2013, Brilliant Planet began as a three-square-meter experiment on the shores of St Helena, South Africa. Today, they’ve grown into a 30,000-square-meter production facility based in the coastal desert of Morocco, where the world’s largest algae growth pond can be found. While algae systems, a full service that converts algae to energy, exist in high numbers around the world, Brilliant Planet stands apart from the rest by being entirely nature-based.

Speaking about their nature-based operation, Brilliant Planet notes, “We’re different from conventional algae systems. We don’t scale up an artificial test tube with artificial seawater and pumped in carbon dioxide. Our nature-based system scales down the ocean to use natural seawater, nutrients, and CO2. This natural process deacidifies seawater, enhances local ecosystems, and also enables paradigm-shifting levels of affordability.”

In the ocean, algae blooms take place seasonally, but Brilliant Planet developed a natural process that essentially “downscales” the ocean to grow algae quickly all year-round. Through this process, the algae system can sequester CO2 at far less cost and at a much quicker rate than direct air capture plants that are meant to capture airborne CO2 particles. For nearly five years, Brilliant Planet has been running its test site in Morocco to much avail, leading to plans for larger demonstration facilities and ultimately a commercial facility by 2024.

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Metal lungs concept uses algae to suck in atmospheric carbon dioxide and replace it with oxygen

This conceptual piece called Super Lung uses algae to replace carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with oxygen. It explores both the power and vulnerability of mammals based on their lungs and the simple act of breathing which can be how a virus spreads or how you calm your mind.

The pandemic caused by various respiratory viral diseases originates from structural limitations in the form of exhalation and inhalation, which are mammalian breathing methods. By sending it out, the propagation power is increased.

However, the algae creates a one-way flow by differentiating the inhalation and exhalation organs through a respiratory organ called anterior air sacs (like the air that flows through the radiator grill of an internal combustion engine), and through this, carbon dioxide is replaced with oxygen. This is a function made to secure oxygen more efficiently at high altitudes, and it also serves to reduce the generation of active oxygen through efficient respiration.

Leaky lungs replace 100% of the air. This is said to reach 300% of the respiratory efficiency of normal mammals. This maximizes the efficiency in a hypoxic environment, and also serves to lower the frequency of exhalation, the main cause of infection, by exhaling less through small respiration.

Super Phe is an agglomeration of technologies for changing the breathing structure of these birds, increasing oxygen efficiency with less breathing, and even increasing the possibility of surviving with apnea in extreme conditions. Less breathing leads to less infection, and apnea is also an extreme prevention technique aimed at zero infection (zero infection).

And, if necessary, it is occasionally supplied with concentrated oxygen either through the skin or from the arteries. It will revolutionize the human respiratory system, which is currently vulnerable to infection, by replacing more than 25,000 breaths a day with just one breath, or by achieving the goal of oxygenation through apnea.

Designers: Bongkyu Song, Moon Kyungwon & Jeon Joonho

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This floating farm turns salty seawater into nutrients for agriculture & improves marine environment!

A Japanese start-up has designed this floating marine farm called Green Ocean using agricultural technology that cultivates seawater as a direct nutrient source! The innovative structure combines salt-resistant technology and sea-friendly architecture to the world a potential solution for the climate change-induced rising sea level problem which comes with heavy salt damage. It harvests rainwater, improves the quality of the water around it, helps with food production while saving water and being a sustainable architectural structure.

Sea level rise is getting progressively worse due to climate change which affects agriculture heavily – it means less land to farm on and also damage to coastal land because of excessive salt. N-ark has developed Green Ocean in partnership with Cultivera which is an agrotechnology R&D company that aims to build the prototype of the floating marine farm by 2022. Seawater agriculture is a special cultivation method that absorbs water and nutrients in the ground and air by mixing and neutralizing alkaline seawater and acidic rainwater. As a result, a huge variety of vegetables can be grown by utilizing the minerals and nutrients contained in seawater!

Green Ocean is a floating, solar-powered, salt-resistant greenhouse constructed with thinned wood and carbon joints. Once it is out on the water, the marine farm will create two new green areas – one will be a food production space that floats on the surface and uses salty agricultural technology and the second will be a layer of algae that will improve the underwater environment. It has a distinctive angular roof that helps to collect rainwater which is then mixed with seawater and used as fertilizer for the plants. Cold seawater is also used for air conditioning within the farms. “By creating a cyclical system environment, Green Ocean plays the role of an adhesive plaster of the Earth,” explains the team.

The basic technology behind seawater agriculture is ‘moisture culture’ which allows cultivation under humidity control. With this method, about 15 cm of the surface layer of natural soil can be reproduced with a special fiber of approximately 5 mm, and vegetables with fortified sugar content and vitamins can be grown by evaporating water with the special fiber by applying water depletion stress to plants. Moisture culture uses one-tenth of the water that is needed in conventional irrigated farming methods and can be applied even in areas where water is not abundant making it a sustainable way to farm at scale.

Designer: N-Ark

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This indoor micro-algae farm mounts to any wall to grow the superfood right at home!

Coral and algae have a symbiotic relationship, one that biomimicry design can depend on as a model. Coral reefs provide algae with a safe environment to grow along with the compounds needed for photosynthesis, while the algae produce oxygen and supply coral reefs with the nutrients needed to keep their ecosystems colorful and healthy. The algae convert carbon dioxide into nutrient-rich biomass, allowing coral reefs to still thrive even in nutrient-poor waters. Following this cycle and applying it to human life, the health benefits of consuming algae cannot be overstated. In order to incorporate algae, a nutrient-rich superfood, into our homes and daily health rituals, Hyunseok An’s design team Ulrim designed The Coral, an indoor micro-algae farm that looks as good as it is for you.

Using algae to convert carbon dioxide into energy, The Coral implements the use of a bioreactor to support its micro-biological farm. The bioreactor provides a controlled environment for the algae to enact photosynthesis and produce the nutrients that are then contained within the wall-mounted cell blocks for future consumption. Each cell block is like a microcosm of stagnant ponds covered with a healthy coating of algae, the only difference being that The Coral is a controlled environment. This controlled environment allows each cell block to successfully perform the symbiotic relationship that occurs in nature as we witness take place in coral reefs. Each of The Coral’s 16 cell blocks contains two-grams of algae that darken as the algae grow. Once a cell block reaches its darkest blue-green, typically over the span of two weeks, it can be consumed and taken in as a daily health supplement, as the cycle is then replenished and continued.

The Coral’s gradient look is biomimicry at its best as it’s the result of a living micro-algae farm moving through the natural process of photosynthesis. Algae is quickly gaining traction for the nutrient-packed superfood that it is and in designing The Coral, Ulrim hoped to bridge the health benefits gained from algae with our daily habits and lived-in spaces. By creating a means for harvesting algae in any home, The Coral provides a sustainable means for attaining enduring overall health.

Designer: Ulrim

Get ready to eat bugs if you want to live beyond 2050

By 2050 there will be an estimated 10 billion humans living on this planet. That's not just a lot of mouths to feed, those folks will be, on average, wealthier than today's population with a taste for the foods found in regions like the US and Wester...

Vollebak’s new 100% biodegradable T-Shirt is made from plants and algae!

Another new month, another new experimental garment from the inimitable creative apparel powerhouse that is VolleBak… except this time they haven’t made a hoodie that glows, or can be worn on Mars, or is made from graphene or carbon fiber. This time they’ve created a garment that doesn’t consciously last thousands of years, but rather, turns into worm-food when you’re done wearing it. VolleBak’s bizzarely eco-friendly shirt uses a never-seen-before one-of-a-kind yarn made from pulped eucalyptus, spruce, and beech, along with a print that’s created using the world’s most abundant flora… algae!

“The only thing different about this T-shirt is that it grew in soil and water, and that’s where it’s designed to end up too. All you need to do is remember to compost it at the end of its life. Here it will biodegrade with them, turn into soil, and help new plants to grow,” explains Vollebak co-founder, Steve Tidball. The yarn is produced using wood-pulp from sustainably managed forests, while the green print on it is derived from algae grown in a bioreactor, before being passed through a filter and dried to form a powder that’s turned into ink. Since algae can’t survive outside water, the print technically isn’t ‘living’, and will fade over time like a patina, making each shirt unique. When you’re done wearing the shirt, just bury it underground and it completely biodegrades in 12 weeks, turning into compost that can then grow new trees. Sustainable fashion, y’all!

Designer: VolleBak