project Bio-Leathur

project bio-leathur

Project Bio-Leathur (PBL) is a collaboration with Thai Nanocellulose, a science and medical company based in Southern Thailand who invented PBL. Studio Khew + Cornelius worked in collaboration with Mr. Sombat, the founder of Thai Nanocellulose to design the performative qualities of PBL such as color, texture and strength so that PBL can be adapted in interiors as an alternative to leather, as well as a material that can be biodegraded and regenerative in nature. It was created in part as a response to the issue of waste in cosmetics and fashion industries, on top of its original purpose as a medical alternative to hospital gauze. PBL is a compostable animal-free leather replacement that can be used in textiles, fashion and interior applications. The current research is focused on the making and testing of PBL’s tensile strength, translucency, transmittance, coloring and the possibility of three-dimensional form crafting of the material.

Acetobacter xylinum, a type of bacteria commonly found in soil and fallen fruits, is a nonpathogenic mesophileidentified by A.J. Brown in 1886. A. xylinum, combined with the germ of rice, another by-product of the agricultural industry, is heated and grown to form the gelatinous form of PBL, known as bio-cellulose. Bio-cellulose is invented for the medical field as a healing accelerant for burn victims and for cosmetic masks. The human face and body require require bio-cellulose, produced in rectilinear sheets, to be cut to fit the organic forms of the body. The leftover bio-cellulose is then pieced together by hand and dried in the sun to form Bio-Leathur.

Below are some images of Project BioLeathur exhibited at Design Shanghai in 2018.