Image courtesy http://www.flickr.com/photos/kristenelyse/

When I found out that a multidisciplinary design firm out of London, PostlerFerguson, developed a 3D printed-stabilized sand-hive structure that uses evaporation to passively cool the air I assumed that they too must have interacted with swarms of ill-tempered bees.  I have no way to substantiate this assumption, but I will wax enthusiastic about the project because it involves an intriguing material: stabilized sand.

Image courtesy PFSK.com

Stabilized sand consists of concrete sand to which approximately 10% of cement is added to give the sand extra stability and hydraulic properties, and it can be mixed in a concrete plant under controlled conditions.  While more traditional stabilized sand has been used primarily in the construction of roads and as flat, load-bearing foundations for concrete retaining walls, it’s also showing up lately in more exciting applications such as “Better Brick,” a project wherein bacteria in solution cement particles of sand together to make bricks.  Stabilized sand is a good candidate for 3D printing – imagine if we could essentially print sandstone, layer by layer, in any form imaginable?

Image courtesy www.metropolis.com

The design of each Air Hive incorporates massive internal surface area, which allows the structure to cool the air by evaporating moisture in it as it passes through.  “The designers refer to the work as ‘not just an installation, but a building language that can be reused again and again to create new public spaces.’ Roads, piazzas, buildings, halls, rooms, architectural ornament—adding non-electrical air-cooling technology to the built environment on a huge variety of scales and conjuring up images of 3D-printed sandstone ornamental cornices on buildings being used to cool urban streetscapes” (Manaugh).  For some reason I keep imagining blocks of these springing up in the desert outside of Las Vegas.

Images courtesy PFSK.com

WU XING:

I’ve filed Air Hives under water because they are evaporative cooling systems and under earth because they are made of stabilized sand.

Cited:

Manaugh, Geoff. “Air Hive.” BLDGBLOG.com 12/09/10. Accessed 12/28/10.  URL.

“A New Kind of Sandcastle” PFSK.com 12/10/10.  Accessed 12/28/10. URL.

Image courtesy carolinabees.com

I’m not exactly sure how they managed it, but these industrious researchers “have managed to pull threads of honeybee silkfrom a stew of transgenically-produced silk proteins, meaning cheaper, stronger lightweight textiles and composites with myriad uses could be around the corner” (Dillow).  They physically pulled these threads from the honeybees somehow (I guess they drugged them with smoke first?  I always see people drugging bees with smoke to make them drowsy).  These silk threads are fantastic because they consist of coils that are all coiled up, similar to our family phone cords back in the 1980’s.  If you were to take enough of these coiled coil threads and weave them into textiles, the thought is, you’d be hard pressed to find a more durable bee-produced material.

Image courtesy University of Cambridge Engineering

So it probably takes a long time and is kind of inconvenient to pull silk threads out of honeybees all day, so researchers assembled some recombinant E. coli bacteria (it’s not just for gastric distress anymore!) who stepped up and made artificial construction of the silk thread possible.  The bacteria cells were tweaked to produce the honeybee proteins (of which, you will recall, there are 4) and these, “with a little prodding, self-assembled into the proper structure to mimic honeybee silk” (Dillow).  So now we can make this strong insect silk in mass quantities, because recombinant E. coli doesn’t break for lunch.

This also means I can look forward to featuring honeybee silk textiles, lightweight composites for use in marine construction and in aviation in the coming years!  I’m so excited.  I’m so … scared.

WU XING:

This entry is about protein, essentially, so I put it in the metal category because it just feels tough and durable and kind of ductile like metal – although I am not sure yet if this silk is any of these things.  What do you think about that?

Cited:

Atkins, William.  “Artificial Silk Could be the Bee’s Knees.”  iTWire.com 02/03/10.  Accessed 02/02/10.  URL.

Dillow, Clay. “Tough, Lightweight Honeybee Silk Could Revolutionize Textiles, Composites.”  Popsci.com 02/03/10.  Accessed 02/03/10.  URL.