Recyclable Crustacean Shell-Derived Bioplastic Created

Tim Fujio
  • February 24, 2019
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Image: The Shellworks

As part of a project titled The Shellworks, four design students from the Royal College of Art and Imperial College of London have created a bioplastic made from waste crustacean shells.

Currently completing their Masters together, desinger Insiya Jafferjee, Amir Afshar, Andrew Edwards and Ed Jones developed various machines called Shelly, Sheety, Vaccy, Dippy and Drippy to enable the transformation of the crustacean shells into bioplastic.

“The machines have been used to prototype applications, each of which exploits a specific property of the material,” said the designers.

Using Shelly to chemically extract a biopolymer called Chitin from the crustacean shells, the Chitin is mixed together with vinegar and processed to create the bioplastic.

Image: The Shellworks
“A small scale extractor to lower the barriers to entry for experimentation with the bioplastic,” explained the designers. “The extractor is designed to offer complete control over each parameter of the process in order to allow for further experimentation at the polymer level of the material.”

The Sheety machine is a mini fan and heat lamp combination that is contained in a controlled environment. By pouring liquid bioplastic onto a surface that can be slid in and out of the controlled environment, perfectly flat bioplastic sheets can be formed. The flat sheets can then be glued together to create bioplastic bags.

Similar to vaccum sealing, Vaccy is a hydro-thermal vacuum former that can seal objects with flat bioplastic sheets using steam.

Image: The Shellworks
Dippy is a heated dip moulder. Dipping metal heat arms into liquid bioplastic that are poured in cups, the liquid bioplastic forms into a mould that can be purposed as containers and or self-fertilizing plant pots.

Any bioplastic scraps created in the manufacturing process can be recycled using Drippy. Placing the bioplastic scraps into a glass cup, a liquid solution of water and vinegar is dripped from above. This gradually degrades the bioplastic from a solid to a liquid and by doing so, the bioplastic can be recycled indefinitely.

The liquid bioplastic can also be used as a fertilizer.

“By designing scalable manufacturing processes, applications tailored to the material, and eco-positive waste streams, we believe we can demonstrate how chitosan bioplastic could become a viable alternative for many of the plastic products we use today,” said the designers.

To learn more about Shellworks, click the link below.

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