Aluminum foil provides a complete barrier to light, oxygen, moisture and bacteria. For this reason, foil is used extensively in food and pharmaceutical packaging.
Latex condoms can be defected if expose to extreme heat, around 104°F (40°C)-can make latex weak or sticky. Exposure to ultraviolet light can ruin condoms in only a few hours. That is why foil wrappers has been a standardized packaging for condoms. The individual foils is hermetically sealed and impermeable to oxygen, ozone, water vapour, ultraviolet and visible light.
Aluminum foil wrapper includes a layer of impermeable, flexible aluminum foil and layers of plastic materials suitable for the mechanical protection of the metal foil and for printing and sealing.
Aluminum foil is a huge environmental hazard because it will degrade in around 60 years when exposed to the elements in the nature. It is not biodegradable in the true sense, over a long period it will break up into smaller pieces in landfill, through oxidation. Aluminum foil wrapper used for condoms will take even longer to breakdown because the aluminum foil is laminated/sandwiched between layers of plastics.
If the material of condom can be changed, then the packaging materials potentially can be subject to change as well. As long as the packaging perform the same function as foil. That is why I want to try to create the packaging of condoms from the same materials that condoms are made of.
I encapsulated a piece of my material in between two layers of materials, created by a ravioli stamp, that is shaped like the standard square package of condoms with serrated edge for easy opening. The material is self-adherent after drying. However, I forgot to put lubricant inside the pocket to separate the condom from its packaging, because they are all made from the same self-adherent material, so all three pieces stick together. This problem with the material is not that different from latex actually, because in industrial manufacturing process, after dipping the mold in latex, they have to coat the condoms with powders like cornstarch, silica or magnesium carbonate to help keep the latex from sticking to itself and make it easier to unroll. If adding more lubricant will help separate and preserve the condom in the packaging, it will kill two birds with one stone. I will experiment with that later.
This used to be the code for “Do you like to buy some condoms sir?” in barber shops across England.
Latex condoms arrived long after the industrial revolution — they were invented in the 1920s. Lionel Alfred Jackson founded the London Rubber Company at 3 Mincing Lane, and started importing condoms to the UK from manufacturers in Germany and America.
Interestingly, the company usually supplied condoms to barbers, rather than chemists because of the social stigma that surrounded the product. Most men were much more comfortable buying a condom from another man, rather than a female shop assistant in a chemists.
In 1932, the London Rubber Company set up its first factory at Shore Road in Hackney. It named its new product Durex. The name comes from three key words for the product: DUrability, REliability and EXcellence.
This history of condom and Durex is very interesting, but the social stigma around sex still exits. I want to further develop my biodegradable condom project. Not only to create a product that can be a more sustainable alternative to latex condoms, but also aim to break the stigma around sex, making birth control more affordable and accessible in order to increase frequency of condom use as a tool for preventing HIV in developing countries. I want to develop a strong, low-cost and biodegradable condom that are made of plant-based natural materials. Because condoms are not only a consumer product, but also a medical device. How can I revolutionized this product through material innovation? As I research more, I found out that the HIV team at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation put out a grand challenge in 2013 looking for designs that revolutionize condoms.
According to Danny Resnic-one of the grant winner, the reason we haven’t seen anything innovative from the main condom manufacturers (Trojan, Durex, Skyn, Okamoto and Ansell, who account for 96% of the market), is that the “oligopoly” has no incentive to change. They already control the market. “True change is going to have to come from outside the industry,” he says. “From the mavericks.”
Reconstituted collagen film from beef tendon, which could be used for condoms. Photograph: Apex Medical TechnologiesDanny Resnic with his vision of the future: the Origami Internal Condom, an eccentric shape it has taken him more than 25 years to develop. Photograph: Steve Schofield for the Guardian
Most of the winning ideas are material based. University of Oregon chemists are working with polyurethane, University of Manchester scientists with graphene, Apex is going back to basics with collagen, the CFHC is also developing its own new condom with Gates funding, its design is a polyethylene condom, not stretchy and thick, but firm and thin. The technical description: “ultra sheer wrapping condom”. Or somewhat like clingfilm.
Pushing the field forwards sounds all well and good, but designs face several hurdles, from the sketchbook to the chemist, and not least the strict EU and US FDA safety regulations, some of which seem somewhat outdated. For example, a condom needs to be able to hold 16 litres of air before bursting. This is an international standard that has been used across all condom manufacturers in the world. Apex’s collagen condoms fail this test. The FDA will only readily approve designs that meet the standards for latex condoms, which simply might not apply. Why should a non-stretchable condom have to hold 16 litres of air?
The product also needs to be equivalent to another device already on the market. But what is the point of innovation if you are making something that is already on the market?
The main focus from those research are increasing pleasure. Because latex condoms are too thick for pleasure. One of the ideas that I came up with is a gel form condom where you dip in the tub and the material dries quickly and it can be washed off with water after use. I found there was a product called spray-on condom created by a German sexual-health educator.
It is a concept that is very similar to mine, however, it did not make it to the market as the latex liquid takes too long to dry( it took five minutes to dry), which was a mood killer.
My material solidify as soon as it left the container and gel up creating a gel sheath on the mold. The question is whether is will be enough to provide protection during vigorous physical activities.
California Family Health Council(CFHC) is America’s top testing facility for experimental condoms. Maybe after more development, I can contact them to test my condoms?
I replaced my cucumber mold with a silicone dildo after tutorial with Isabell . Normally, the condom manufacturer uses glass or ceramic rods as mold for latex condoms, but silicone mold somehow work better for my material after multiple experiments.
I still need to work on increasing the elasticity of the material. But the material holds water fine and took the shape of the mold. It tend to dry out after exposing to air over night. If I can keep it in a sealed and lubricated package, it might stay in the state where it resembles latex the most.
A company called Evoware created a material from green algae(seaweed) and dammar-a non-timber forest product in indonesia and dammar generally recognized as safe and has been used as a food stabilizer, especially as an oil-weighting agent.
This material dissolves when encountering hot water. It might not be a good option for what I want my material to do but I learnt a lot from this project about how to present your idea/research with infographics and diagrams to help articulate and illustrate the value of your project. Also this is another case of applications of algae based bioplastics as an alternative to synthetic plastics. Which reassured my observation of this emerging trend in the design field of creating biomaterials, more specifically bioplastics with algae.
The design group, AMAM and their project Agar Plasticity explores the use of agar as a biodegradable substitute for conventional plastic packaging. They discovered that by boiling certain types of algae and dehydrating the resulting soup, it’s possible to create a variety of shapes and textures that could replace plastic film or foam packaging. For example, the frozen solution takes on a soft, cushioning structure, and when it’s compressed, it forms a plastic-like film.
This project gave me the idea of experimenting with the material at all stages. I should boil it, shred it, freeze it, microwave it, compress it to explore the potentiality of the material properties. I should design a more systematic approach to testing materials. By creating a list of action words or compile a list a manufacturing process, I will have a bank of words that I can act upon when I am trying to physically manipulate materials.
To help me contextualize Neri Oxman’s work, I looked into Biomimicry and its application in the filed of architecture design. Led by American biologist Janine Benyus, biomimicry propose a design theory that human beings should consciously emulate nature’s genius in their designs, getting inspirations from nature’s structure, systems and functions to help tackle some of the most complex issues we are facing. And this approach to design was embraced by several architects and designers as part of the sustainable design revolution. Among them, Michal Pawlyn, who has created several architectural projects that uses biomimicry principles as a tool to produce sustainable solutions and he also wrote the book Biomimicry in Architecture to systematically explain how biomimicry is the key in building a sustainable future. I watched TED talks by both Janine Benyus and Micheal Pawlyn to learn more about their research and work.
She talked about how material scientists describe the way we make things as Heat, Beat and Treat (heat up material, physical manipulation, add chemicals) and this way of making produced massive waste of materials and energy. In contrast, nature make things by adding information to matter to gave the function to the structure.
How does life make things disappear into systems? She asked. In nature, nothing is divorced from the systems, they all eventually feed back to the system in a different form.
In this more recent TED talk, she talked about that we are heading towards a non- industrial evolution, a revolution that demands us to refer to biological wisdom from the nature to build a sustainable future on earth. Life is additive, making things by adding materials with no waste left, where we make things by subtracting materials, creating massive material waste and inefficient use of energy. Nature has only 5 polymers, we have 350 different kind. And it is hard to recycle. In nature, the structure change to grant function instead of creating new materials all the time.
To better understand the world rubber monopoly by southeast asian country, I started to look into the history of rubber production and the current world natural rubber market.
According to an article “Top 10 Rubber Producing Countries in World” by businessfinancearticles (https://businessfinancearticles.org/rubber-producing-countries), the rubber tree Hevea Brasiliensis is indigenous to Brazil and its wild growth was very common.
After the voyages of 1492, Columbus made some knowledge available to EuropeAfter the voyages of 1492. For the next two centuries, it was just a museum curiosity in Europe for this new plants. In 1823, British inventor and chemist Charles Macintosh, established a plant in Glasgow for the manufacture of water-proof cloth and rainproof garments. During the 19th century, the Brazilian government banned the export of rubber plant to preserve its monopoly. Therefore, the Brazilian Jungles continued to be the main source of crude rubber for most of the 19th century. Despite a rigid embargo, in 1876, a British explorer smuggled 70 thousand seeds of Hevea Brasiliensis, he was Sir Henry Wickham. These seeds were planted in London Kew Garden( now the Royal Botanic Garden in London). Later on, plants 2,800 were sent to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and to Perak in, Malaya, for plantation, and then plantation was introduced in Indonesia.
In 1905, the year the first shipment was exported from Malaya, Malaysia. At that time Brazil was producing 99% of the world supply. Today Brazil accounts for less than one percent. Today more than 80% of plantation comes from south-east Asia.
The world biggest condom manufacture-Karex is a Malaysia company that produces 60% of the world condoms.
The rubber industry produces a wide range of products like the auto tire, auto tubes, automobile parts like seal & Timing Belts, footwear, Conveyor belts, cables & wires, battery boxes, condoms, surgical gloves, wetsuits etc.
As a result, there are certain correlations between the sales of automobile and the price of condoms as they share the same resource that has been monopolized by southeast asian countries.
I watched number of condom manufacturing videos on youtube to study the industrial process of manufacturing condoms.
According to my research, Karex in Malaysia is the biggest condom maker in the world. They manufacture around 60% of the condom for hundreds of brands all over the world because of the rubber monopoly in southeast Asia. I found two videos produced for Karex that tells the story of the global condom manufacturing giant and gave an in-depth look into their manufacturing process. Of course they will not reveal all their secrets on screen, this video still gave me a great knowledge of how condoms are made industrially and informed my own creation process.
To get a more multiple views on the manufacturing process of condoms, I watched videos produced for two other brands: German condom giant Billy Boy and Indian brand Manforce.
Interestingly, both Karex and Billy boy did not reveal how they process natural latex into the final substance that makes condom, but Manforce did. They revealed the process of preparing the chemical composite that they use to mix in with natural latex to produce the raw material for condom, which is super helpful for me.
They all mentioned tests and international standards for testing condoms in the manufacturing process which helped me to think about how to test my own materials and what standards it need to reach to in order for it to become a viable substitute for latex in condom manufacturing.
Today we gave an elevator pitch of our SOI for the next project. I got some very useful feedback from everyone.
People gave advices such as researching more about packaging and other applications of my materials. But I have to say, most people are interested in the biocondom project and I will continue to develop that idea for my realize project.
RCA Graduate diploma 2019 