Beer into leather?  Creating plastic-free biomaterials from a global waste source

Dr Dan Whitaker

Our material landscape is dominated by plastics and petrochemicals, this wasn’t always the case. Humanity needs to use nature's building blocks to build a clean future.

Arda Biomaterials’ first innovation, New Grain, is an animal and plastic-free leather alternative made out of proteins extracted from beer brewing waste. This talk will cover the materials landscape, from animal hide to PVC, plastic-based ‘vegan’ materials to mycelium & lab-grown leather and why Arda believe that their unique solution combines all the right ingredients for success.

Dr Dan Whitaker, Senior Scientist at Arda Biomaterials, will discuss a personal journey, from a petrochemical-soaked Masters and PhD in polymer chemistry  to a career in biomaterials and Arda's vision for a sustainable biomaterial future.