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Kombucha cultures can be turned into flexible electric circuit boards
- causi 4y agoI don't get why this is significant. How is this a better substrate than any other flexible plastic? Isn't the issue with flexible electronics the robustness of the circuits and components?
- Maxion 4y agoArticle was paywalled for me, but in general Plastic does not decay so for products that are essentially consumables it's better if it doesn't stay and pollute the environment.
- jagermo 4y agoaccording to Ars Technica, its lighter, cheaper and more flexible. and probably degrades faster. https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/kombucha-electronics-sure-why-not/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/kombucha-electronics...
- mouse_ 4y agoI can turn a piece of cheese into a flexible circuit board, if anyone wants to give me venture capital for that...
- carapace 4y agoYou might be joking, but you can actually make plastic out of milk/cheese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casein
- LBJsPNS 4y agoSo you've had Kraft singles, I see.
- willcipriano 4y agoYou have to unwrap them before use.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- blarghyblarg 4y agoIt consumes sugar and creates carbon dioxide. I know this might seem facetious, but I'm actually curious... are the greenhouse emissions lower?
- pokot0 4y agoNo, it's a good point and I'd like to know as well. Ofc being biodegradable means it will sooner find it's way into some photosynthesis and recapture that carbon.
- causi 4y agoTo be fair, the carbon content of a conventional circuit board is already sequestered in the circuit board.
- NickBusey 4y agoAre greenhouse emissions lower when fermenting some sweet tea, versus extracting oil from the earth, refining it, converting that into plastic, then forming that plastic into the shape you want? I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, yes.
- inkcapmushroom 4y agoSCOBY is basically a waste product from producing kombucha, you have to remove an amount from each batch which (in the case of home brewing) is usually given away to others for free or discarded, not sure how they handle it with industrial-scale kombucha making. So this could be more of a clever recycling that doesn't produce any more CO2 than was already being produced during the making of kombucha.
- TSiege 4y agoThis is true if you make naive assumptions like making circuit boards are a clean technology with no CO2 emissions or other harmful side effects. That of course is entirely incorrect. Printing circuit boards are very energy intensive along with a lot of other impacts like toxic waste and heavy water use. > In the US, a single fab, Intel’s 700-acre campus in Ocotillo, Arizona, produced nearly 15,000 tons of waste in the first three months of this year, about 60% of it hazardous. It also consumed 927m gallons of fresh water, enough to fill about 1,400 Olympic swimming pools, and used 561m kilowatt-hours of energy. (source https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/18/semiconductor-silicon-chips-carbon-footprint-climate https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/18/semicond...) Kombucha on the other hand, yes produces CO2 as a waste product, but it is very easy to see a kombucha SCOBY being carbon neutral. That is the source of it's sugars being carbon energy free, and the manufacturing process of SCOBY circuits as well. Then it's carbon neutral
- fit2rule 4y ago[dead]
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoEnvironmentally speaking, it's better, since it's biodegradable. On the other hand, buying a gadget that dissolves when it gets just a bit wet might not be a smart thing... But i can totally see them selling "biodegradable" flashing LED bracelets (or similar single-use crap), where the bracelet iself is biodegradable, and the rechargable battery (without an actual charging circuit) and plastic potted LEDs are not....
- stdbrouw 4y agoFWIW, it's biodegradable but it doesn't dissolve in water. If you've never handled a kombucha scoby, it's very rubbery and tough.
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoI've held it, but i've also got it wet (after being dry), and i seriously doubt that the printed-on metalic layer would survive, since the surface gets soft and jelloey.
- TSiege 4y agoA scoby is just basically a matrix of cellulose. Assuming the circuits are printed into that substrate it could be quite stable
- dokem 4y agoIsn't biodegradability not a feature we want in most manufactured goods? Doesn't that just mean they will start to rot and break down on their own?
- teucris 4y agoThe issue is time scales. Plastics take thousands of years to degrade but we only really use plastic products for a few years. What can we find that hits a sweet spot of, say, 10 years? Wood does this well, and it’s mostly cellulose. So is paper and this stuff.
- 4y ago
- ascotan 4y agoPeople have been working on bio circuitry for decades now. Not sure of it's utility but man-machine interface comes to mind. I think the fact that it's biodegradable is probably not the point.
- PedroBatista 4y agoGreat.. now "they" really won't shut up about Kombucha..
- lancesells 4y agohttps://archive.is/N98MG https://archive.is/N98MG Edit: Ignore. As commenter pointed out it's still paywalled.
- comprev 4y agoThis snapshot doesn't circumvent the paywall
- avian 4y agoCan't read the article behind the pay wall, but possibly it's based on this preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.03984 https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.03984
- infotropy 4y agoOddly not paywalled for me but yes, the article is based on that preprint.
- dghughes 4y agoKombucha tastes like a circuit board so making them into circuit boards is a good idea.
- mypalmike 4y agoIt's an acquired taste. Circuit boards, that is.
- qup 4y agoYou can season them up pretty well. I like the classic seasoning combo of brow sweat, flux, and hardened cigarette tar.
- Xeoncross 4y agoI laughed out-loud for that. As someone that enjoys some (but not all) sodas and kombuchas I really recommend people try several. Don't think all wines/sodas/teas/smoothies etc... are the same. They can be made from just about anything (fortunately/unfortunately)
- Jeff_Brown 4y agoI hate beer and soda, but I've never met a kombucha I didn't love.
- qup 4y agoDo you think it's a texture thing? Or lack of varied experience? Those two products have tens of thousands of flavor profiles, it's strange to me that you can dismiss them entirely. I had a red velvet cheesecake craft beer the other day and there was no hint of "beer" in it. I like everything, and I've never had kombucha, so this thread has me excited to try it... Many times, for the various flavors!
- Jeff_Brown 4y agoI loved soda as a kid, and beer in my twenties. Now I quite dislike the taste of alcohol and sugar in the quantities one typically finds in beer and soda, but you're right, there are exceptions I have enjoyed. They've been rare. (I haven't kept track, and I haven't actively sought them out either.)
- nyfern 4y agoCheap, light, flexible, yet robust circuit boards are critical for wearable electronics, among other applications. In the future, those electronics might be printed on flexible circuits made out of bacterial cultures used to make the popular fermented black tea drink called kombucha, according to a recent paper posted to the arXiv preprint server. As we've reported previously, making kombucha merely requires combining tea and sugar with a kombucha culture known as a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast), aka the "mother"—also known as a tea mushroom, tea fungus, or a Manchurian mushroom. It's akin to a sourdough starter. A SCOBY is a firm, gel-like collection of cellulose fiber (biofilm), courtesy of the active bacteria in the culture creating the perfect breeding ground for the yeast and bacteria to flourish. Dissolve the sugar in non-chlorinated boiling water, then steep some tea leaves of your choice in the hot sugar-water before discarding them. Once the tea cools, add the SCOBY and pour the whole thing into a sterilized beaker or jar. Then cover the beaker or jar with a paper towel or cheesecloth to keep out insects, let it sit for two to three weeks, and voila! You've got your own home-brewed kombucha. A new "daughter" SCOBY will be floating right at the top of the liquid (technically known in this form as a pellicle). Beyond the popularity of the beverage, kombucha cultures hold promise as a useful biomaterial. For instance, in 2016, an Iowa State professor of apparel, merchandising, and design named Young-A Lee gained attention for her proof-of-concept research in using dried SCOBY as a sustainable leather substitute for biodegradable SCOBY-based clothing, shoes, or handbags. In 2021, scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Imperial College London created new kinds of tough "living materials" that could one day be used as biosensors, helping purify water or detect damage to "smart" packing materials. Experiments last year by researchers at Montana Technological University (MTU) and Arizona State University (ASU) showed that membranes grown from kombucha cultures were better at preventing the formation of biofilms—a significant challenge in water filtration—than current commercial membranes. “Nowadays kombucha is emerging as a promising candidate to produce sustainable textiles to be used as eco-friendly bio wearables,” co-author Andrew Adamatzky, of the University of the West of England in Bristol, told New Scientist. “We will see that dried—and hopefully living—kombucha mats will be incorporated in smart wearables that extend the functionality of clothes and gadgets. We propose to develop smart eco-wearables which are a convergence of dead and alive biological matter.” Adamatzky previously co-authored a 2021 paper demonstrating that living kombucha mats showed dynamic electrical activity and stimulating responses, as well as a paper last year describing the development of a bacterial reactive glove to serve as a living electronic sensing device. Inspired by the potential of kombucha mats for wearable electronics, he and his latest co-authors have now demonstrated that it's possible to print electronic circuits onto dried SCOBY mats. The team used commercially sourced kombucha bacteria to grow their mats, then air-dried the cultures on plastic or paper at room temperature. The mats don't tear easily and are not easily destroyed, even when immersed in water for several days. One of the test mats even survived oven temperatures up to 200° C (392° F), although the mats will burn when exposed to an open flame. Adamatzky et al. were able to print conductive polymer circuits onto the dried kombucha mats with an aerosol jet printer and also successfully tested an alternative method of 3D printing a circuit out of a conductive polyester/copper mix. They could even attach small LEDs to the circuits with an epoxy adhesive spiked with silver, which were still functioning after repeatedly being bent and stretched. According to Adamatzky et al., unlike the living kombucha mats he worked with previously, the dried SCOBY mats are non-conductive, confining the electrical current to the printed circuit. The mats are also lighter, cheaper, and more flexible than the ceramic or plastic alternatives. Potential applications include wearable heart rate monitors, for instance, and other kombucha-based devices. "Future research will be concerned with printing advanced functional circuits, capable for detecting—and maybe recognizing—mechanical, optical, and chemical stimuli," the authors concluded.
- procparam 4y agoThe mat at the top of the kombucha is not the SCOBY. It is a waste product of the SCOBY - just a big slab of cellulose. This is a misunderstanding that I've seen people on r/kombucha get pretty upset about The actual SCOBY is in the kombucha itself, not the cellulose. It's pretty easy to prove; when I made kombucha I would throw out the mat after every batch and save some of the liquid to use as starter for the next.
- barbazoo 4y agoI didn't know that, thanks for mentioning it.
- richeyryan 4y agoYou also don't need the mat, also known as the pellicle, to start brewing kombucha. It is entirely redundant. Just get a couple of bottles of unpasteurised, unflavoured kombucha and use that as your starter, along with the fresh tea and sugar. Those kombucha starter kits with a pellicle are just a big scam.
- rcpt 4y agoYou can just use whatever store bought Kombucha to get going. Of course if you find any scoby on Craigslist it's guaranteed to be an interesting encounter
- vbezhenar 4y agoDo you have any reference? I don't think that's strictly true. I agree that this big slab is just some kind of protection, but if you would look at the bottom part of this slab, you would see threads, like small seaweed which "grow" from this slab. My understanding is that kombucha is a symbiotic mix between those threads (it's actually Yeast fungus) and bacteria in the liquid. Liquid does contain some parts of fungus, of course, so you can throw out the entire slab and new slab will grow eventually, but you're throwing lots of yeast and its protection. So your kombucha will take much more time to brew and final result will not have the same proportions of components as "properly" brewed kombucha.
- snek_case 4y agoBut, is Kombucha Turing-complete?
- rotten 4y agoI look forward to the AI enhanced SCOBY life forms taking over the world.
- Oxidation 4y agoAnd I thought the Accelerando lobsters and Sheena 5 squid were out there!
- LoganDark 4y agoHaven't seen the word "SCOBY" in years. I think the first and only time I saw it was in an episode of JESSIE[0]... [0]: https://jessie.fandom.com/wiki/Moby_%26_SCOBY https://jessie.fandom.com/wiki/Moby_%26_SCOBY
- sva_ 4y agoI'm always fascinated that most cultures have some fermented foods in their cuisine. I often wonder how they came up with it. Extreme thirst or hunger? Curiosity? Or have they slowly 'evolved' in a way that people let them ferment more and more over time?!
- poulsbohemian 4y agoI have a bunch of weird hobbies, including things like brewing mead, making cheese, and yes, I have made kombucha. Years ago when they were still in a garage, I walked into the "office" of what is now a nationwide kombucha brand. I didn't know anything about kombucha but there was a lot of hype about these people. I started asking questions and was directed to the "head brewer." I wanted to talk microbiology, but it was very evident they had no effing clue what was actually in their mother culture. Sure, they knew how to dump it into their tea, but that was about it. Not very long after that, they had reached national distribution. I think there are a lot of lessons in there for people who are worried about imposter syndrome or people who think all you do is build a better mousetrap, as it had nothing to do with their product and everything to do with the founder having deep ties to the grocery world.
- htag 4y agoA non-technical cofounder with deep industry ties is a strong positive signal.
- poulsbohemian 4y agoAbsolutely - as far as I know, they had just one founder, who was very clearly a sales / marketing type. My guess is that they didn't really have any passion for kombucha (I only met them once, by accident really, so don't know the story...) but had done the research on a product that was primed for commercialization.
- eat_veggies 4y agoWhen it comes to fermentation, you can get pretty far by developing a good intuition (through experience) of how to steward your little ecosystem and how it responds to your particular ingredients and environment. You can be an expert on that and produce great flavors without knowing the microbiology, like cheesemakers and brewers have done for thousands of years. Granted, the hard science is helpful in getting to the next level and achieving a product that's consistent from batch to batch.
- 4y ago
- haskellandchill 4y agoIs there a cheaper way to make circuits? Those printers are apparently in the $200k range?
- LBJsPNS 4y agoWell it's nice to see someone has turned that disgusting mildewy crap into something useful.
- niccl 4y agoA friend of mine dries it with some fruit extract and makes a really good fruit leather. Not sure of the details, but I am sure it tastes great
- durpleDrank 4y agoI had a HORRIBLE epic that spanned 2-3 years of unknown gastro problems. I blame Kombucha 100% for rotting my insides. A cup every now and then is ok but if you drink it daily (like I did) in large doses (like I did) and make your own (which I tried to save money) you'll soon realize it's essentially VINEGAR. I wont get into the specifics but stay away from this stuff at all cost. Try some cashew yogurt or other pro-biotic foods. Long term Kombucha drinkers tread lightly.
- Carrok 4y agoHow much were you drinking? I have never heard anything like this. If you brewed it at home, then you should know that yes, acetobacter the bacteria part of the SCOBY converts the alcohol that the yeast creates from the sugar into acetic acid. Vinegar is 5-8% acetic acid. This isn't secret, sacred knowledge. Sounds like you over did it, no need to spread your FUD around.
- wackycat 4y agoI feel like I often see breakthroughs in natural material computing like this but they never seem to make it to market that I've noticed. What am I missing? It seems like everyone would want to move in the direction of sustainable computing materials.
- 1270018080 4y agoIt's probably always cost and scale