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We know 3D printing for ten years and continues to evolve and surpass itself. Many fields have looked at this practice. Today it's the world of textiles that is interested in its possibilities, pieces already exist and were created by Iris Van Herpen for example. But they remain rigid, which is not the most pleasant to wear. Thanks to a chain mail structure, Tom Mallisson engineer at digit2widgets create lightness and flexibility in 3D prints. Imagine the future of textiles, we could combine all the possibilities of recycled plastics and elegantly transform them into comfortable clothes, and give à second life to our plastics wastes. 

Good news is scarce nowadays, and this one is great for the planet. The Carbios company has just produced the first transparent bottle from rPTA (Recycled Purified Terephralic Acid). This is truly a tour de force, because this virgin polymer is obtained from old used clothes with a high PET content. To explain to you, this common bottle is the promise of being able to re-use old soiled plastics from second rate to the "first league", as raw material for our everyday objects. A real upcycling sector for plastic, essential for treating the tons of PET waste which today invades our landfills and the oceans. The circle has come full circle !!! With plastic waste, we make blank bottles, textiles, objects, which then produce waste which remakes virgin material, then bottles, ... etc ... It's not beautiful !!

A team of chemists from Hefei University in China are currently working on the development of a new composite directly inspired by the structure of mother-of-pearl. Sea shells have been the subject for many years of scientific study to unravel the mystery of their extraordinary hardness and resistance. It seems that their intimate construction, of thin mineral bricks stacked and strongly glued to each other, is the secret of their exceptional characteristics. Chinese researchers have therefore transposed the principle by using mica chips as bricks and cellulose nanofibers in mortar, following a manufacturing process called "assembly by directional deformation". The first prototypes exceeded their expectations, because they offered great strength, rigidity, toughness, thermal stability and low coefficient of thermal expansion. In short, a natural material and produced at low cost which could replace polymers in many uses. Another fine example of bio-mimicry.
The Article on Nature Journal