Kombucha Lab: Grow Your Own Leather

Kombucha Lab Report

Kaiyao Li-Sustainable System-Instructor- Pf. Christopher Kennedy

Prediction

For prediction, since it is bacteria-based fiber, I think the longer I put it in the tea and sugar solution, the thicker this fiber would grow; since the whole experiment is totally sealed, I assume kombucha is anaerobic, which means it can consume sugar without gaining oxygen, therefore with higher temperature, it might react faster and produce more fiber. Hence I decided to put my reaction box under right in front of my window where the sun can shine and probably heat a little bit. I also asked Cassie to compare my kombucha lab with hers since she put the reaction box inside the room where the sun cannot shine.

 

Process

• As instructed, I boiled the water and then added tea and sugar to make the basic solution. The final solution looks half-transparent and in dark red color. (March 22^nd)

 

• When the solution cooled down, I put in the SCOBY for the kombucha to grow. SCOBY is a solid state, having a texture of rubber. The solution started to show bubbles, not sure if the bubbles were produced during the boiling or the because of the SCOBY’s reaction with the solution. (March 23^rd)

 

• Waiting for around one week, the kombucha started to grow like mold and the color turns a bit white, which looks like a thin film on the surface. (March 31^st)
• Waiting for almost three weeks for the kombucha to grow, it forms almost half an inch thick of the fiber “leather”. The surface looks smooth and reflective even, but not plain; on the surface, there is a little crater, probably formed because of respiration. (April 13^th)

• When the fiber looks ready, I got it out and put it on a plate in order to dry it. Waited almost for another two weeks, the kombucha leather dried and shrunk significantly with the color darkened into tea color as well. The smooth surface of the kombucha leather when I first got it out turns into half-transparent, fragile, newspaper-like texture and the thickness also shrunk into almost one-twentieth inch, just like a piece of paper. (I realized I did not take a pic after I cut it ☹) (April 24^th)

Prototype

This is not a hard part for me actually, with the leather-like-textured textile, the first thing in my mind that I want to make is a cardholder, not only because the fact that I am short of one, but also, considering the size and fragility of the textile, a cardholder is a practical product that kombucha leather can bring.

Below are the process of ideation and me making the cardholder (industrial sewing machine):

 Results

For the result, when I put the kombucha SCOBY into the tea-sugar solution, a significant amount of bubbles were produced but I was not sure if it was purely because of the SCOBY since when the whole solution was totally cooled down before I put in the SCOBY, the solution had a lot of bubbles in it already. Besides, the shrinking of the fabric is significant as well as the rise in fragility and nosedive in flexibility. When I was trying to make a cardholder out of the kombucha, the stitching of the industrial sewing machine crushed several layers of the “leather” so many times, which was annoying.

Below is the whole process of me making the kombucha leather:

 Then I also tested the PH value of this kombucha leather-breeding solution, just as the smell tells me, the solution is highly acidic.

 Conclusion and Reflection

This experiment provides a really innovative idea to grow fabrics organically using bacteria. I was astonished right after doing the experiment and watching what this small bag of bacteria finally became. I cannot help thinking what if this fabric manufacturing technology is popularized, will the whole fashion design industry be changed by this? No doubt that is legendary. This kombucha leather is definitely a cradle to cradle design since whenever we want to throw away our own clothes, we throw them away and they can be “digested” by the earth to provide nutrition to grow more bacteria thus clothes. People would definitely question the fragility of the textile, so would I; however, even though it was true that no matter how thick it grows it can never hold its weight as clothing does, people can use it to manufacture small accessories like cardholder, shoelaces, even bracelet. It has the smell of mother nature, which, to me, is definitely acceptable. Besides, this field can definitely be further explored because I am assuming the tea is doing the color for the textile while sugar is supporting the nutrition; what if we change the variable? Can the color be changed into something more fashionable? Can it be less fragile if we feed it salt and other sorts of food? It is definitely a path for the future fashion industry and most importantly, this daily-product-bred textile can even be easily decomposed by the earth, which would also be a significant advantage in future competition with other fabrics.

Besides, as I mentioned, I asked Cassie to do a comparative experiment with me, and below is the result of indoor kombucha leather and sunshine kombucha leather:

Citation:

 

Lee, Suzanne. “Grow Your Own Clothes.” TED. Accessed April 25, 2019. https://www.ted.com/talks/suzanne_lee_grow_your_own_clothes.

 

Bonham, Kevin. “Kombucha Takes 2 to Tango.” Scientific American Blog Network. December 05, 2016. Accessed April 25, 2019. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/food-matters/kombucha-takes-2-to-tango/.