Eggshell

Egg-Shield

Egg-Shield is a concept that proposes to rethink the final destiny of products. It is inspired by the utopia of living in an ´Ecocentric´ world which entails a society whose processes, consumption and disposal of things are always loyal to the planet. Waste is no longer waste but repurposed and harnessed. Egg-Shield incorporates eggshells as an asset for the creation of ephemeral objects and imitates the main purpose of an eggshell: protection. The natural behaviour of the material gives it a uniqueness and biodegradable features that demonstrate its circularity.

By shifting from nonrenewable resources to organic waste, Egg-Shield demonstrates how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This reduces the extraction and processing of unsustainable materials. Alternatively it explores the potential of using eggshells from the food/waste industry as a component for a lightweight, cement or ceramic-like material. It considers sustainability and biomimicry through the use of concepts such as: using waste as a resource, renewable materials, life-friendly chemistry and low energy processes to manufacture the pieces. It promotes a paradigm shift by demonstrating that organic waste can act as an alternative asset to produce objects. Here, excess of food waste is prevented from ending up in landfill and the material harnessed as a product. It will only be discarded when it is no longer useful and will do so in an environmentally sustainable way through biodegradability: following the cradle-to-cradle model since its composition consists only of natural and non-toxic materials.

Egg-Shield addresses the problems of improper disposal of things and excess of waste by giving eggshells a new purpose, in this case, to act as a shield. Imitating nature; the eggshell are used for their original purpose: protection. An ephemeral protection is the inspiration for the design of a cuirass, armour-like product that creates a symbiosis between material and human. The material when wet can be moulded to any shape, when the material dries it becomes stiff and brittle adopting the characteristics of a ceramic. Its natural behaviour provides unique shapes and patterns demonstrating that eggshell surplus can be repurposed in many innovative ways and fabricated using 3D processes. Among the different shapes created, we developed tiles, capsules, 3D printed pieces, a mask, and containers.

The cuirass design is the framework for the project and it is being further explored for future applications, which will go beyond a concept. Therefore, high-quality products made of organic material residues have recently been developed in collaboration with Khamai Studio. The initiative addresses the need to better handle our resources, through proposing to build a cyclic process with new local business models, exploring and researching the collection of the raw material, local production and distribution chains, of the pieces that are being designed.

Making process

The process used to make pieces is scalable. It is summarised in 5 main steps that can be followed at home and that also exist in the largescale industry: grinding the eggshell into a fine powder, heating the mixture of components, forming through casting or 3D printing, cooling to accelerate the de-moulding process and drying.

The final promise is to raise awareness of product disposal by making people re-evaluate the relationship they have with residues and using this research as a reference to encourage consumers use their surplus organic material to create something from it. The intention is to demonstrate that any material surplus can be repurposed.

Text submitted by the maker and edited by the Future Materials Bank. For information about reproducing (a part of) this text, please contact the maker.