Sorbet Acoustic Panels

The design student’s Honours’ research project: Experimental Materials Exploration seeks to identify and respond to opportunities to better manage commercial and household waste. Textile waste was selected over paper and organic wastes due to its abundance and accessibility. Furthermore, textile waste has the second lowest recovery rate (after plastics) in Australia. Approximately 500k tones of textile wastes are discarded in landfill every year with households contributing to 90% of textile wastes that are fed into landfill.

Sorbet acoustic panels are made to be easily recycled and reused, with a range of aesthetic options such as colour and texture that are available though textile waste. Sorbet acoustic panels are made from 100% textile waste with a starch based glue that allows it to be easily reused through exposure to heat and water. As Sorbet acoustic panels approach their end of use, they will be collected and reused to close the loop for a circular economy.

The materiality of Sorbet’s acoustic panel promotes the reuse of the product in its end of life. The recoverability of the product is attributed to its water soluble, starch-based glue. The material cost to produce each 450x450x(15-30) mm panel is approximately $5.00 AUD which includes the starch glue ($1.00), textile waste, and textile shredding service ($4.00). According to the results of an acoustic performance test performed in a sound controlled environment, it was extrapolated that the textile-waste based material can reduce noise more efficiently than EchoPanels and acoustic foam.

When mixed into textiles, the starch-based glue demonstrated density that is equal to PVA with a lower curing/drying time. A humidity test was performed on a Sorbet’s acoustic sample over 5 days. A key observation was that the sample was soft after being sprayed with water but regained it’s toughness overnight. This is attributed to the high salt content of the starch-based glue that was used to bind the textile-waste based material. The aesthetic options of the acoustic panels were considered to fully make use of suitable and available textile waste. Two aesthetic options of the acoustic panel: ”Blueberry Lemonade” and ”Red Velvet” feature selected colours and textures, whereas the ”Hundreds and Thousands” panel can be made from a wider range of textile wastes. The design of the sound measurement apparatus for the acoustic performance test was appropriate from a professional source: Echo Engineering and utilizes 3 distinct frequencies of a sine wave (138.6hz, 554.5hz, and 2217hz) to measure the acoustic performance of material samples. The acoustic performance test found that the 24mm textile-waste based material outperforms an equally thick EchoPanel by 10.5%, and acoustic foam by 23.9%.