There’s been a development in the use of PHA material for 3D printing.
PHA is a wonder material in that it naturally biodegrades. This means that discarded objects will not ultimately become microplastics that infest our environment, food and even our bodies, bringing random chemicals along to cause unknown troubles.
However, PHA has had a difficult time entering the market. There are only two commercial providers that I am aware of, Fiberlogy in Europe and 3D-Fuel in North America, and one promotional organization, Beyond Plastic. The material can print objects just as well as other more commonly used materials, but there are almost no print profiles found for the material. Most 3D printer operators are satisfied with their current materials and don’t want the bother of switching.
Now a new use of PHA has been developed by OXMAN.
OXMAN is a new design lab founded by Dr. Neri Oxman. Oxman has been pioneering the use of computational engineering and 3D printing for many years, creating spectacular designs and changing the world of fashion. OXMAN’s mission:
“We are a design company advancing the unification of top-down design engineering with bottom-up biological growth toward the mutual empowerment of Nature and Humanity.”
One of their first products is Oᵒ (pronounced “Oh – zero”), a product platform that’s entirely made with PHA. This is almost certainly the first approach to make consumer product from the fully biodegradable material. That’s the reason for the material selection, as OXMAN explains:
“O° is a design platform that starts and ends with biology. Their life and afterlife in bacteria are the kernels of a future we wish to see in the world, one that propels us beyond the realm of ‘product recycling’ to the realm of ‘product reincarnation’: a future in which shoes can biodegrade to nurture fruit-giving-trees, and trees befall shoes.”
They’re specifically developing shoes using the platform as their first product.
It’s not just a material and design software, however, as the platform includes an automated system for “bio-digital fabrication”. They explain:
“The Oᵒ platform aims to leverage a versatile mono-material system tuned to deliver a wide array of mechanical, thermal, chemical, and manufacturing properties that meet a broad range of processing needs and applications. It offers fundamental advantages for manufacturing and end-of-life strategies in a vertically integrated approach to biopolymer design, digital fabrication, and programmable decomposition. An Oᵒ consumer product can be produced in its entirety in a single location, on a single material class, using a single fabrication system.”
This is an important development; we now have a viable platform to produce 3D printed products using fully biodegradable PHA material, for the first time. It may be that OXMAN produces a series of consumer products using the platform, or they could also license the technology to others to produce different products. Or both.
This could be the breakthrough that makes PHA a popular material in the 3D print world: if OXMAN can do it, why not others?
Via OXMAN and PRNewsWire
