With Refinity I help companies that develop textile products with eco-effective designing. For my customers I am always looking for new materials that makes it possible for them to create environment friendly products.
Subject?
I would like to develop a flexible wadding following the research question:How can we make a warm, voluminous, slightly elastic, washable, non-toxic, non-allergenic, flexible wadding from mycelium in an environment friendly process, that can compete with the current prizes of well-known fillings and have the same or better properties?
Why?
I am looking for new environment friendly materials that can be used in products made with flexible materials. I think growing mycelium costs a lot less from the environment then for example making polyester filling or down, because mycelium is grown by nature and biodegradable and does not harm animals. I choose to develop a wadding-like filling because it is a material that could be used for multiple purposes like cushions, sleeping bags, body warmers or other insulation types. Creating a material that is used for an outer surface is difficult, because the outside of a product is very dominant in setting the mood of that product (colour/texture/feeling) and therefore it will be used in less products. I want to have a positive impact on the world with this material so it must be used as much as possible therefore a filling material would be more suitable then an outer surface.
How?
- Learning more about the properties of mycelium in nature and how the wadding can benefit from them.
- Doing lab research on creating the flexible wadding material with mycelium- Researching the costs of current well-known fillings
- Exploring what the possibilities and costs are to make the flexible material with mycelium in an industrial installation.
- Exploring if the process can be environment friendly by discussing with industrial producers.
What?
My aim is to create a material that can be used as filling for e.g. cushions/sleeping bags/bodywarmers. I would like to learn more about the possibilities of mycelium and how my customers could benefit from this material and I would like to document the possibilities and share this through my website/blog to give inspiration for other companies and speed up the development of environment friendly materials.
