While studying the possibilities for materials development using our various substances under investigation sometime we also get inspired to make works of art (or at least craft). Some examples are shown below. These objects will be on display at an upcoming exhibition at TU Delft library. If anyone is interested in exploring this sort of activity, as an art project or similar, please feel free to get in touch (see contact tab for details).
Japanese bowl (Stephen Picken). This is made from a cellulose microfibre ‘papier mache’ with maize starch, using toiletpaper cellulose, and it is covered with a cellulose nanocrystals based composite top-coat. The colours are from Gouache paint, so with a Gum Arabic base (arabinogalactan).
Earrings (Yuemei Lin). These are made from cellulose nanocrystals (CNC), derived from recovered cellulose microfibres (toiletpaper), with an annamox wastewater treatment plant derived exopolymer binder. Basically this is what you can make from sewage. Note the iridescence is the result of the formation of a chiral nematic liquid crystal structure in the CNC colloidal dispersion.