KOMBUTEX
by Guoda Treciokaite
Introduction
The textiles industry is one of the most polluting industries in the world. Largely petroleum-based, textile products end up in landfills or the ocean at the end of their lifecycle where they take hundreds of years to biodegrade, shed microplastics into the environment, and exhibit toxic effects. Exploring nature-based innovations is necessary for both environmental and social reasons, helping us to achieve more holistic solutions in our production ecosystems and value chains. Although we are exhibiting a product, the ethos of the project is to explore and promote biomimicry - a nature-inspired approach to science, design and industry in general.
Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a waste product of kombucha brewing. Creating a product from it, such as a bag, extends its lifecycle. BC is a 3D nanofibrillar biopolymer and consists of pure cellulose fibres. It is free of lignin, hemicellulose and pectin present in plant cellulose. BC has structural and mechanical properties different to those of plant cellulose with advantages such as its unique crystalline structure and great mechnical properties. On the other hand, it exhibits a loss of flexibility and a collapse of the 3D network upon drying, has a high water holding capacity and is highly hydrophilic.
Bacterial cellulose is obtained by kombucha fermentation. Tea is fermented with a mother culture called SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast) which consists of bacterial cellulose. The bacterial populations vary but most commonly include acetic acid bacteria Komagataeibacter xylinus. To obtain a sheet, BC is grown at static culture conditions as a gelatinous film. To make Kombutex, the BC film is treated and processed with natural coatings before drying. The goal is to find a recipe that creates a material with performance properties suitable for textile applications without compromising its biodegradability.
Guoda Treciokaite is a scientist with a focus on material design. Her interdisciplinary work falls at the intersection of biodesign, textiles and material innovation. As part of her master degree in Polymer Science, she is doing research on bacterial cellulose and biodegradable polymers at FU Berlin. Her work was exhibited at Dutch Design Week in 2020 and her project Kombutex won the Circular by Design Award in Luxembourg in 2021.