Materialism: A Materials Science Podcast26 Feb 2025

Episode 101: All About Biomatter

How do we turn plants into plastics and polymers? Find out in this episode as Taylor leaves Utah and ventures to Washington to sit down with Eleftheria Roumeli, an assistant professor at the University of Washington and researcher in the field of biomatter. Learn all about how a fish tank full of "gross" bacteria can be used to create complex and surprisingly strong shapes or about how Eleftheria's research group forages around local shores for seaweed to get the necessary biological materials. Finally we cap it off with a discussion about the environmental impact these materials have and how we should be evaluating their footprint.

Relevant Articles:

Eleftheria's Research Group [LINK]
Fabricating Strong and Stiff Bioplastics from Whole Spirulina Cells [LINK]
The role of biomolecular building blocks on the cohesion of biomatter plastics [LINK]
Progress in Sustainable Polymers from Biological Matter [LINK]

This Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Materials Today, an Elsevier community dedicated to the creation and sharing of materials science knowledge and experience through their peer-reviewed journals, academic conferences, educational webinars, and more

Thanks to Kolobyte and Alphabot for letting us use their music in the show!

If you have questions or feedback please send us emails at materialism.podcast@gmail.com or connect with us on social media: Instagram, Twitter.

Materialism Team: Taylor Sparks, Andrew Falkowski, & Jared Duffy.

Keywords: Plants Biomatter Biopolymers Bioplastics

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(120)

Episode 118: The Molecular Universe with SES AI

What if you could know which batteries are worth building before you actually build them? Taylor and Andrew sit down with Dr. Qichao Hu, founder of SES AI, to explore how artificial intelligence is re...

18 Mai 44min

Episode 117: Textiles in Space

The fanciest suit isn't on the runway, it's in orbit. In this follow-up episode, Taylor and Andrew bring back Kate Winning from Oxford Space Systems to dive into the world of space textiles. From the ...

4 Mai 37min

Episode 116: Textile Materials

Textiles are all around us, they are literally woven into nearly every part of our daily lives. From the everyday materials in the clothes we wear to the specialty materials in parachutes, spacesuits,...

31 Mar 55min

Episode 115: Phase Field Modeling

Many digital models use hard boundaries to simulate how materials change, but the real world is rarely that clean. Phase field modeling takes a more natural approach, capturing the gradual, messy tran...

6 Mar 40min

Episode 114: Synchrotron XRD on Demand

Having access to advanced characterization tools sounds great but sadly they aren't easily attainable. Momentum Transfer seeks to remedy this by offering mail-in access to synchrotron X-ray powder dif...

21 Jan 47min

Episode 113: Metal Organic Frameworks

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to pioneers in the field of MOFs, but what exactly is a MOF? We sit down with Dr. Matthew J. Cliffe, an associate professor at the University of Cambridge...

11 Des 202551min

Episode 112: Merging 3D Printing and SPS

3D printing and SPS(Spark Plasma Sintering) are two incredible techniques that are best suited for different purposes, but what if there was a way to combine them to open up a whole new world of possi...

11 Nov 202532min

Episode 111: The Science of Gemstones

There’s a lot more to gems than just sparkly rocks. While we can’t promise they’ll cleanse bad vibes, we can dive into the incredible science behind them. In this episode, Andrew and Taylor chat with ...

9 Okt 202552min