Sometimes the beginning of the year is a little bit … well … boring. Everyone is working out at the gym and eating healthy green foods, and even though the sun still sets at an ungodly hour, all the festive holiday parties are over.  This admirably disciplined January attitude is great for working off all the pfeffernüsse you shoved in your face and chased with rum-laced egg nog at your Aunt Betty’s house in December, but if you’re not careful all of this new-found rigidity and focus could negatively affect your work.  So if you’re looking to spice up your latest facade design and hey – maybe even your life in general this month, then take a gander at this intriguing “multi-layer, polymeric reflective film that reflects 95%+ of visible light” and that can be used to create snazzy chrome-like, multicolored, and metallic effects in plastics (Source: Inventables.com).

Image courtesy UT Materials Lab & 3M

Radiant light film contains no metal whatsoever, so it’s non-corroding, thermally stable, non-conductive, and won’t produce electro-magnetic interference; it’s a well-mannered material that manages to create a striking effect with a minimum of fuss.  Taking a cue from butterfly wings, the colors in the film are created NOT through the use of pigments but rather through a series of microscopic ridges spaced a few hundred nanometers apart. Variations in the spacing of the ridges produce a range of colors (blue to magenta to gold) though the reflection and interference of different wavelengths of light, and as a result the material appears to change hue as you adjust your viewing angle.

Radiant light film is nothing if not versatile: it can be “embossed, die cut, sheet slit, precision cut, surface treated, dyed, coated to be heat sealed, coated with adhesive, printed and extruded into plastics. It can be combined with suitable color substrates to produce various vibrant colors in both reflection and transmission” (Inventables.com).  Hell – you can even turn the stuff into yarn and knit it into a sweater if you’re so inclined, according to manufacturer, 3M.

UN Studio’s La Defense, Almere

Technology: 3M Radiant Colour/Light Film.
Using radiant colour film to create interference colour.

So far the film has found applications in home décor, packaging, automotive trim and accents, computers, mobile phones and advertising media, and inspired by UN Studio, I think we should wrap some buildings with it. And then let’s go have some cookies because we all knew I’d never make it to March let alone 2013 on this ridiculous salad-filled healthy diet and I’m sore from doing pushups.

WU XING

I have filed Radiant Light film under Water and Wood. It’s flexible, reflective, and it interviews well.

Get Radiant Light Film from Inventables.

Even thinking about glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) makes me itchy. The reason for this is that the glass strands involved with this material are so fine (by which I mean that they are extremely thin and tiny, rather than that they are really really ridiculously good looking) that they get caught in your skin and clothes and become profoundly irritating, after the manner of a wood splinter or Brett Favre.

Image courtesy taiwan.xpshou.com

At the Actuated Matter Workshop in Zurich, we were introduced to a particular configuration of GFRP developed by Loop.pH, which I have dubbed, “Lo-mein GFRP” due to its noodle-esque appearance. The material is much stronger and stiffer than pasta, however, which allowed us to bend it into circles and secure the shapes with small brass tubes.  I found out that if you bend Lo-mein GFRP too far, it fails spectacularly, emitting a quiet yet somehow disdainful pfffffft noise and spraying glass fibers everywhere like needle-sharp, toxic fairy dust.

GFRP circles can be intertwined and woven into a kind of structural textile that can take various forms according to the number of circles combined in any particular configuration.  For example: if you take one circle and surround it with five other circles and connect all of them, you will produce a spherical construction; if you surround your starting circle with six other circles you get a flat surface; and if you ring your circle of origination with seven other circles you will achieve a floppy but endearing hyperbolic paraboloid (aka saddle shape).

Spheres, circles, and saddles can be combined to form almost any surface you can imagine, from a column (a flat sheet, rolled into a cylinder) to a triply periodic minimal surface constructed entirely of conjoined saddles.  The construction we built at the workshop to support our sound, light, and movement modules was a just this sort of minimal surface, and it was glorious.

Invisible itchy splinters aside, I enjoyed working with GFRP because it’s lightweight, extremely strong, and delightfully robust.  It’s not as strong or as stiff as carbon fiber but it’s a heck of a lot cheaper and it’s much less brittle.  The material is commonly used for boats (holla!), automobiles, hot tubs, water tanks, roofing, pipes, cladding and external door skins, and less commonly it is used to make interactive architecture.

Please check out this video featuring the final installation and make it a great day!

Actuated Matter Workshop from materiability on Vimeo.

WU XING:

I filed GFRP under wood because it’s bendy and fibrous. And because I call the shots around here.

Image courtesy arilourdes.wordpress.com

The scientists are using nanocellulose fibers from bananas, pineapples and other plants to create plastic that is 3-4 times stronger than petroleum-based plastics, and 30% lighter.  Not only that, nanocellulosic plastic is better at resisting heat, chemicals, and water.  The material reportedly rivals Kevlar in strength, but in contrast with that lovely chest-protecting substance, it’s renewable and biodegradable.  The Brazilian researchers believe that within a few years nanocellulosic plastics will enjoy widespread adoption.

To make nanocellulose, the researchers take cellulose, a familiar substance that provides the structure of the cell walls of green plants, and processes it to the point where “50,000 [fibers] fit within the diameter of a human hair” (Squatiglia).  The best source for the fibers has been pineapples, although bananas, coconut shells, agave and curaua, a plant related to pineapple, have also proved workable.  The researchers take the leaves and stems of the plants and heat them in a device similar to a pressure cooker, yielding a fine powder resembling talc. The fibers can be added to other raw materials to produce reinforced plastic, and could even be combined with petroleum-based plastic if a specific application required it, although the product would not biodegrade.

Image courtesy howei.com

The plastic is expensive to produce, but the cost would come down dramatically if the plastic were adopted by automobile manufacturers and other industrial systems.  Right now, one pound of nanocellulose can produce 100 pounds of plastic (Squatiglia).  While I haven’t been able to find out whether the researchers have tried to make nanocellulose with Tulip leaves, I guess this year the joke is on me!

WU XING:

I have filed nanocellulosic plastic under wood and earth.

Cited:

Squatiglia, Chuck. “Bananas Could Make Cars Leaner, Greener.”  Wired Online.  03/28/11. Accessed 04/20/11. URL.

Image courtesy en.wikipedia.org

Understandably, people were pretty much done with the plant, and outside of the occasional burst of color in springtime gardens, the Tulip carried on growing under the radar. That is, until a group of materials scientists out of the Delft University of Technology researching ultra-strong materials decided to take another look at the flower that had so fascinated their forebears.

“We had been working with minerals for so long, trying to find a way to strengthen steel,” says Delft University of Technology researcher Koenraad Van Tonder, “but we hit a dead end. The breakthrough came when I bought a bunch of what I thought were ordinary tulips for my girlfriend to apologize for forgetting our anniversary.  She threw them at me and stomped them with her feet, but we were both surprised to see that they were unharmed.”

Image courtesy www.zastavki.com

Van Tonder brought the tulips to the lab, where the team worked with specialists to analyze the plant.  It turned out that Van Tonder had purchased a tulip called “Tulipa fortis” and known among tulip aficionados for its hardiness.  The team discovered a unique cellular arrangement within the leaves along with two heretofore unknown phytochemicals, which they believe are responsible for the Tulip’s amazing strength.

Image © David Spears

Van Tonder and his team dried the leaves and pulverized them, then added hydrochloric acid to the powder. Placing the acid-powder mixture under tremendous heat and pressure, they were able to effect the formation of polymers.  The tulip plastic they produced proved to be easy to work with. “We found we could extrude the tulip polymer matrix into long chains, which could then be woven into cables,” says Van Tonder, “we are testing the cables now, but the results have been shocking. This is strong stuff.”

Using a single 1/4″ diameter woven tulip cable hooked up to a rig, the team was able to lift a grand piano. They then used two cables tied with a slip knot to tow Van Tonder’s car out of the graduate student parking lot and over to a mechanic. “The battery in my Yugo had died and I couldn’t afford to have it towed,” says Van Tonder, “but since we’ve discovered this amazing new material, I’m thinking of upgrading to a Fiat.”

The researchers are still testing the material, but early results indicate that the plastic is extremely stable, fire-resistant, and it appears not to deform in any way when subjected to changes in temperature. It’s stronger and lighter than steel, and can be molded, rotocast, and extruded into complex forms. When it comes to market, this Tulip-based plastic will revolutionize the construction industry. I think I see more tulip mania on the horizon!

WU XING:

I’ve filed Tulip Plastic under wood.

Cited:

Koenraad Van Tonder. Interview. 03/31/11. Delft University of Technology.

Image courtesy dartfrog.co.uk

As it turns out, there is yet another way to look at plastic bags; and, after I describe a machine invented by Akinori Ito of the Blest Corporation, I suspect that you will cast your gaze upon polyethylene, polystyrene and polypropylene with all the savage ferocity of a scavenging hyena.

Image courtesy good.is

Akinori Ito realized that since plastic bags are created from oil, it ought to be possible to return them back to their former state. The machine he invented “can convert 2 lbs. of plastic into a quart of oil using just 1 kilowatt of power. The machine heats the plastic with electricity, then traps the vapors, which it then cools and condenses into crude oil. The crude oil can be used to heat generators and some stoves, and when refined, it can be used for gasoline” (Dailey). I can imagine people wandering the streets looking for plastic bits to heat their homes and refining oil in their garages on the weekends.

Image courtesy coolhunting.com

Because the machines do not burn the plastic (as often happens at landfills and other waste management sites), they sequester the CO2 and toxins that would otherwise travel into the atmosphere without benefitting anyone until the oil can be used to do work like heating a home or driving a car. “The innovative recycling method could revolutionize the way certain plastics are treated. Because the system is made for households, it could create an energy independence among consumers, and lessen the need to extract more oil from the earth” (Dailey). BTW, I have already signed up for two lake clean-ups and have begun hoarding plastic like some people hoard cats.

Right now the machine costs about $10,000, and I calculated that, at the price of gasoline in my town I’d need to generate about 3,000 gallons of gas to break even, and that it would take me approximately 17 years to burn that much fuel at the rate I drive (Hooray Ford Fiesta!). But then again, math is not my forte. Ito hopes to achieve economies of scale and bring the price down as demand for the machines rises.  If oil prices keep going up, I can easily see that happening!

WU XING:

I have filed these plastic conversion machines under WOOD because that is where I file all my plastics, and, privately, under AWESOME.

Cited:

Dailey, Jessica. “Japanese Inventor Akinori Ito Creates Machine that Converts Plastic Bags into Fuel.” Inhabitat. 02/14/11. Accessed 03/24/11. URL.

Until this week I thought that Charlie Sheen was your ordinary aging Hollywood actor. Really, if I thought about him at all, I assumed he was working on a TV show, staying tan/undergoing the occasional face lift, failing at some marriages, and I believed that human blood and maybe some high-quality cocaine were flowing through his veins. But now I have a completely different perspective.  Now I know that Charlie Sheen has tiger blood and adonis DNA, and that he is a total freakin’ rock star from Mars.  

As if that news weren’t enough, I also learned this week that a team of scientists at Yale University have discovered that bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) – which are metal alloys whose atoms are randomly arranged (in constrast with the ordered, crystalline structures found in typical metals) – can be blow molded like plastics into complex shapes that ordinary metal can’t achieve without losing any strength or durability (Physorg.com). BMGs are biwinning. They win here, they win there. I can’t process this with my normal brain!

These alloys, made up of zirconium, nickel, titanium, and copper, which look like metal but can be molded as inexpensively and as quickly as plastic have allowed researchers to fabricate a number of complex shapes, including “seamless metallic bottles, watch cases, miniature resonators and biomedical implants-that can be molded in less than a minute and are twice as strong as typical steel” (Physorg.com). Like Charlie, they only have one speed, they have one gear: GO.

Image courtesy physorg.com

In fluid or a vacuum at low temperatures and pressures, the bulk metallic glass softens and flows like plastic without crystalizing. This allowed the reaserchers to shape the BMGs with unprecedented ease, versatility and precision.  Three separate steps in traditional metal processing (shaping, joining, and finishing) were combined into one step (Physorg.com). BOOM! That’s the whole movie. That’s life.

If BMGs are as easy to recycle as traditional metals and less toxic than plastics, then they will revolutionize the way we live. Radical.

WU XING:

Filed under metal. (For the win, bro).

Cited:

“Stronger than Steel, Novel Metals are Moldable as Plastic” Physorg.com 03/01/11. Accessed 03/03/11. URL.

Image courtesy www.samcooks.com

Australian researchers at the University of Queensland and UNSW School of Physics have managed to manufacture cheap, strong, flexible and conductive plastic films by placing a thin film of metal onto a plastic sheet and mixing it into the polymer surface with an ion beam.  “Ion beam techniques are widely used in the microelectronics industry to tailor the conductivity of semiconductors such as silicon, but attempts to adapt this process to plastic films have been made since the 1980s with only limited success – until now” (Beale). The ion beam allows the researchers to tune the properties of the plastic film, meaning that they can control with an astonishing degree of precision the film’s ability to conduct or resist the flow of electric current.

Sample of the conducting film. (Photo: Adam Micolich)

The researchers found they could vary the electrical resistivity over 10 orders of magnitude, meaning that there are around ten billion options to adjust the recipe when making the plastic film. In theory, they could make plastics that conduct no electricity at all, plastics that conduct as well as metals do, as well as everything in between (Beale). The plastic films can even act as superconductors and pass current without resistance if they are cooled to a low temperature.

To take conductive plastic films from the lab to a potential commercial application, the team produced “electrical resistance thermometers that meet industrial standards. Tested against an industry standard platinum resistance thermometer, it had comparable or even superior accuracy” (Beale). The new films can be produced using equipment common to the microelectronics industry, and can tolerate more exposure to oxygen than standard semiconducting polymers.

The material completely fascinates me because it starts with all the desirable aspects of polymers (mechanical flexibility, robustness and low cost) and then adds good electrical conductivity, which is a property not normally associated with plastics.  Ion beam processed polymer films could have a fantastic future in the on-going development of soft materials for plastic electronics applications, fusing current and next generation technology.

WU XING:

I have filed conductive plastic films under wood and under fire.

Cited:

Beale, Bob. “New Plastics can Conduct Electricity” Physorg.com 02/22/11. Accessed 02/22/11. URL.

I ordered a sample of super elastic plastic from Inventables, and when it came in I decided that it would be a lot easier to physically demonstrate how stretchy it is, rather than merely describing the elastic qualities of the material. Also the plastic came a lovely shade of pink (which may or may not have influenced my decision to order it in the first place) and I thought you might like to see the pinkness of it. All this is to say that I just made my first Materials in Motion video post, and I hope you will find it entertaining and educational.

A short film about stretchy pink plastic by ARCHITERIALS.com

WU XING:

I filed super elastic plastic under Metal and Wood, because the characteristics of plasticity flexibility, ductility, etc, are often attributed to these elements.

ARCHITERIALS is a year old now, and like most healthy, well-adjusted one-year-olds it needs to be changed constantly, crawls all over my apartment, and makes strange burbling noises.  No, really – it does.  It’s terrifying.

Over the past year I’ve profiled approximately 65 materials and learned about blogging, bacteria, and biscuits, although I must confess that the biscuts were a side project.  A delicious, buttery side project.  Anyhow, to celebrate the birthday of ARCHITERIALS and the fact that the tagline “Investigating architectural materials since 2010” has finally attained temporal legitimacy, I’ve compiled for this, the 10th day of January,  a list of 10 materials from 2010 that are generally awesome.  I’ve also summarized the awesomeness of each material in a brief paragraph, and I’ve tried to frame each one as part of a larger, sort of big-picture trend in materials science that I’m studying.  Should you click on the links and read the detailed posts about each material for more information? Definitely. 

Finally, thank you so much to those who’ve submitted information, followed, liked, and posted photos over the past year, I appreciate it more than you can imagine!  Keep the materials coming and do tell your friends if your friends seem like people who might be interested in ARCHITERIALS.

Ten Awesome Materials from 2010 and Reasons They are Awesome:

1.  Materials that can be deployed in disasters or used to improve living conditions:  Concrete Cloth

Concrete cloth is a concrete-impregnated fabric that is fire-proof, waterproof, moldable, drapeable, durable and generally fantastic.  Applications include: gabion reinforcement, sandbag defenses, ground surfacing/dust suppression, ditch lining, landing surfaces, formwork, spill containment and landfill lining, waterproofing, building cladding, boat ramps, erosion control, roof repair, water and septic tanks.  Concrete cloth solves problems you don’t even know you have, although nothing can repair your terrible relationship with your mother-in-law.   

2.  Sustainable, non-toxic materials:  Reclaimed Wood and Agricultural Fiber Panels

Kirei Board, Kirei Coco Tiles and Kirei Wheatboard made from the non-food portions (stalks and husks) of sorghum, coconut, and wheat plants.  The agricultural fiber that’s not sold by farmers for use in the manufacture of Kirei board takes up space in landfills or gets burned up and pollutes the air – therefore repurposing it cuts down on that sort of thing.  Sustainable building materials make the planet happy, and a happy planet makes for happy people. 

3.  Biodegradable materials:  Arbofoam

As it turns out, lignin can be transformed into a renewable plastic if it’s combined with resins, flax and other natural fibers. The resulting bio-plastic, called Arboform, can be thermoformed, foamed, or molded via injection machines.  It’s durable and super-precise when it’s cast, and it degrades similar to wood into water, humus, and carbon dioxide. It’s very cool stuff indeed and I’d love it if someone would send me information about a project where it’s been used.  Biodegradable materials cut down on landfill and reduce environmental pollution. 

4.  Thermoplastic/thermoelastic/thermoformed/thermo-etcetera materials:  Chemical Velcro

How could you not get excited about an adhesive 10 times stickier than Velcro and the reusable gecko-inspired glues that many research groups have been trying to perfect that comes apart when heated??!  I have been trying without success to get my hands on some of this to build demountable partition walls for my tiny apartment, and I’m not giving up.  Materials that respond to changes in temperature by changing their behavior or attributes will find widespread application in the future. 

5.  Materials that clean and sanitize themselves:  Liquid Glass

Liquid glass a coating that takes advantages of the unique properties of materials at nanoscale.  It is environmentally harmless and non-toxic, and easy to clean using only water or a simple wipe with a damp cloth. It repels bacteria, water and dirt, and resists heat, UV light and even acids.  According to manufacturers, you can spray liquid glass on everything from wood to seeds to your sneakers.  It could someday replace all the toxic cleaning products you currently use to tidy and disinfect, and it reportedly costs about 8 dollars.  Materials that clean and sanitize themselves cut down on the need for toxic chemicals and pollutants. 

6.  Materials that emit light efficiently:   White LED Lights

White LED lights emit more light than a typical 20-watt fluorescent bulb, as well as more light for a given amount of power. With these improvements, the new LEDs can replace traditional fluorescent bulbs for all general lighting applications, and also be used for automobile headlights and LCD backlighting.  Shedding light on any given subject has never been more efficient.  As we transition to alternative forms of energy we are also looking for materials that emit light without using much energy in the first place.

7.  Nanomaterials:  Gold Nanoparticles

Gold nanoparticles can be used to further increase the efficiency of LED lights.  Researchers have implanted the particles in the leaves of aquatic plants, causing the leaves to emit red light.  Theoretically, the light produced by the leaves could cause their chloroplasts to conduct photosynthesis, meaning that no additional energy source would be needed to power the process.  In fact, the leaves would actually work overtime, absorbing CO₂ at night.  Nanomaterials allow us to intervene in processes like photosynthesis with a previously unheard-of degree of delicacy.

8.  Materials that augment already useful material properties:  Bendywood 

Bendywood is wood that has been pre-compressed so that it can be easily bent by hand.  The tension that forms on the outside of a bend merely returns the plant cells to their former shape, and the wood doesn’t break.  The material is delightfully flexible and pliable.  Bendywood was developed for indoor uses such as furniture, handrails, or curved mouldings, and it shows enormous promise.  Materials like Bendywood amplify the appealing properties of familiar materials so that it’s even easier to use them to our benefit.

9.  Bio-based materials:  Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP)

At the intersection of biology and solar tech, there are jellyfish that produce green fluorescent protein (GFP).  Dripping GFP onto a silicon dioxide substrate between two electrodes causes it to work itself into strands, creating a circuit that absorbs photons and emits electrons in the presence of ultraviolet light.  The electron current (aka electricity) can then be used to power your hairdryer.  I’m completely fascinated by materials that help us to blur the boundaries between biological and man-made machines.

10.  Materials that repair themselves:  Bacilla Filla

Bacilla Filla is a material that patches up the cracks in concrete structures, restoring buildings damaged by seismic events or that have deteriorated over time.  Custom-designed bacteria burrows deep into the cracks in concrete, where they produce a mix of calcium carbonate and a special bacteria glue that hardens to the same strength of the surrounding concrete.  Materials that can detect their own flaws and damage and repair themselves will revolutionize the way we build and think about building materials in the future.

Image courtesy www.virginmedia.com

Installing blast-resistant glass in buildings that are potential targets of attacks or in regions prone to severe weather can save lives but unfortunately, most blast-resistant glass cannot be placed in a regular window frame. The upshot is that it’s incredibly difficult – not to say prohibitively expensive – to replace standard glass windows in most structures (Verrico).  So what can ordinary people who are not now and probably never will be Pope do to avoid being on the receiving end of jagged shards of glass flying through the air as a result of high winds or explosions

Image courtesy University of Missouri

A team of engineers from the University of Missouri and the University of Sydney in Australia think the answer is to install a “blast-resistant glass that is lighter, thinner, and colorless, yet tough enough to withstand the force of an explosion, earthquake, or hurricanes winds” (Verrico).  In contrast with today’s blast-resistant windows, which are made of pure polymer layers, their design consists of a plastic composite that has an interlayer of polymer reinforced with glass fibers.  And most exciting, it’s only a quarter-inch thick.

Image courtesy University of Missouri

So let’s talk about this interlayer for a minute.  Long glass fibers 15 to 25 micrometers in diameter (about half the thickness of a typical human hair) are woven together to form a kind of glass cloth, which is then soaked with liquid plastic and bonded with adhesive.   The small size of the glass fibers reduces the incidence of defects and cracking in the glass.   The fibers also provide reinforcing for the polymer matrix used to bind them together.  The glass fibers, plastic, and the adhesive that bond the interlayer to two thin sheets of glass on either side are all transparent to visible light.

Image courtesy University of Missouri

It is expected that the blast-resistant glass will “slip easily into standard commercial window frames, making it much more practical and cost-efficient to install…. The goal is to create blast-resistant panes as large as 48 by 66 inches (he standard General Services Administration window size for qualification blast testing) that can still be cost-effective. While dependent on results from upcoming tests, [the] glass could become commercially available in three to four years” (Verrico).  I can see this type of glass being mandated in the future in places like Florida and the other Gulf Coast states, and for government buildings all over the world.  And maybe it one day lightweight, blast-resistant glass will even be used to increase the fuel efficiency of the Popemobile?

WU XING:

I’ve filed thin, blast-resistant glass under water, fire, and wood because it’s a composite and it just feels right.

Cited:

Verrico, John. “A New Kind of Blast-Resistant Glass.” Press Release. US Department of Homeland Security – Science and Technology. 12/9/10. Accessed 1/4/11.  URL.