El hilo infinito
Material
Algae waste
Year
2022
Location
Barcelona
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"El hilo infinito" creates a new process to obtain a material designed as a continuous, living, sustainable and environmentally friendly thread.
This new material is obtained from a biological process based on a symbiotic relationship between bacteria and yeast. It is presented as a sustainable and compostable alternative to current textile threads and fabrics.
Textile production is one of the major contributors to environmental pollution, responsible for emitting 10% of global CO2 emissions and polluting 20% of the world's drinking water. (European Parliament, 2022)
Global pollution contributes to climate change, which leads to an increase in water temperature. When the water in the oceans warms up, algae proliferate to the
point of invading the coast more and more frequently.
These invasions affect particularly a sector, the shellfish industry, especially the bivalve fisherwomen, which has always been key to the social development of coastal areas.
These invasions in the form of blankets on the sand asphyxiate the mollusks, creating great economic losses for this collective.
To nourish the bacteria of the Infinite Thread, algae are collected from Galician estuaries, using them as a source of carbon and nitrogen, key elements for their development and survival.
"El hilo infinito" establishes a relationship of synergies with the collective of shellfish gatherers, as collectors of invasive algae, in order to manufacture a thread for the textile sector to offer a sustainable and unlimited option.
El hilo infinito © 2022 by Noelia Esparís Figueira, Irene Segarra Rius is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
The designed machine allows to perform the different stages of biofabrication and post-processing to obtain thread in an autonomous way. These are divided into three stages.
Feeding.
Tank to contain the nutrients necessary to feed the culture.
Cultivation
The feeding and cultivation zone are connected by a pump. In this phase is where the bacteria culture is located and when it performs the fermentation process, producing a surface cellulose film. This film is delimited by surface dividers, which allow the production of thin films, which will later be converted into threads.
Winding
This is the final stage of production. The films are removed from the culture every 24h while they are twisted on themselves to obtain a thread with a cylindrical section and higher resistance, which is then winded.Part of the thread is kept in the culture, allowing the continuity of the thread for the next extraction.
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