Charcoal Desk Bio Luminaire

In this Instructable, I show you how I designed and made my desk bio luminaire for my 3rd year of Industrial Design project. I created my material using charcoal from a braai (barbeque), mixed it with some ingredients to get the desired outcome for my design.

The luminaire is 100% bio-degradable because I only used environmentally friendly ingredients most of which are in their raw state (not processed).

I aimed to create a modern, minimalistic yet aesthetically pleasing design which could be placed on a side table. I also designed it in such a way that the lighting will create patterns around the room through the detail on the grass I added.

Materials and ingredients needed:

• Charcoal (in a crushed/powdery form)
• Pit sand
• Cotton wool
• Water
• Cornflower
• Sugar
• Lemon juice
• Bicarbonate of Soda
• African yellow thatching grass
• Wool
• Hair spray

Tools needed:

• Mould tools
• Vacuum-formed moulds (of the design)
• Stove
• Pot
• Mixing tools ( whisks etc.)
• Big bowel (to mix the charcoal material
• Small nails
• Hammer

I created the mould tools for the design so that I could vacuum-form them

I will later use this mould to place my material in.

Start by mixing the crushed/powdered charcoal with the sand, depending on the amount of charcoal you are using, the amount of charcoal to the sand could be approximately 3:1,5. You should add a little water in there to reduce the amount of dust whilst mixing.

I was trying to mimic how concrete was made being mixed with sand, so you could also use the ratios used to mix cement with sand.

Then add small pieces of cotton wool balls into that mixture, you could add about a quarter of cotton to the total ratio of the charcoal and sand mixture.

The purpose of cotton wool is to help keep the material together as it uses its fibres to keep them together better.

Create the adhesive in the order below, these are also the standard measurements I used whilst I was still testing my material. You can increase the ratio to your required amount.

Standard measurements:

• hot water-140ml
• Cornflower- 3 spoons
• Sugar- 4 spoons
• Lemon juice- 1 spoon
• Baking soda- 1/2 teaspoon

I was inspired by a video from the BE CREATIVE YouTube channel and you can use it to guide you to create this adhesive.

YouTube video link: https://youtu.be/rWrou_-6wHA?si=jBv-1vrWC1xogNk2

Add the adhesive to the charcoal mixture, make sure that you do not add too much. What you want is to achieve a gel-like consistency so that it will not lose its shape when you remove it from the vacuum-formed mould.

Spray the inside of the moulds with Hair spray oil so that the material does not stick onto the mould.

Add the material into the mould. Try to reduce the amount of bubbles formed in the mould by shaking it after adding more material. If you have access to a vibration table you could reduce the bubbles. Some of the textures the bubbles create can look interesting on the final product so do not remove all the bubbles from the mould unless you want the final product to have a smooth material.

After about 5-10 minutes, remove the material from the mould onto a surface so that it could dry. Do not get it exposed to the sun for the first day to avoid cracking. On the second day, you could place it un the sun to increase the rate at which it dries.

Use the mould tool with some nails to create a jig for placing the grass to form the shape. Leave it in the sun for two days, it will remain in that shape. Use some cotton wool to tie the grass together and create your desired pattern.

This may be challenging for beginners, but it does require skill to create a beautiful pattern. You could look at tutorials on the internet oh how they make grass products like grass hats. Practice makes perfect.

The material will take about a week or two depending on where you leave it to dry. Once it is dry, create the adhesive again and use it as the adhesive to put together the parts and insert the other components.

Place the grass material in with the charcoal material and you have a charcoal desk bio luminaire.