Sustainable Materials Through Cultural Integration: From Vintage to Modern Functionality

Abstract

This study solemnizes cultural tapestry and material science to engineer sustainable and market-adoptable consumer products, culminating in the design of a standalone transdisciplinary domain, which we call ‘culture-infused material science’. Initially, we designed a holistic conceptual framework propelled by a dynamic and iterative loop that integrates stakeholder empowerment and material innovation, inspiring research and development, education and entrepreneurship. Following this pathway, we transformed a cultural symbol, culinary bronze from the Indian state Kerala into a functional material. A traditional foundry-manufactured sputter target reformed the culinary bronze into a cytocompatible antimicrobial coating. The current work explicitly explores innovations in food contact surfaces for human hygiene and health. We bring out the importance of human acceptance of materials or technology in scientific interventions to be one of the core pillars in the design features of sustainable formulations.