First of its kind, H2ERǴ Phyona Ring is made by materials researcher and designer, Karoline Healy. This ring contains metals which were obtained using emerging technology of phytomining, these metals come from special species of plants also known as hyperaccumulators that suck up metals from soil through their roots, awesome heh?. These plants grow in soil or water high concentrations metal, they can absorb these metals through their roots, hence they have high concentration level of metals in their tissues.
Phyona Ring by H2ERǴ is said to be the first known jewellery item created from phytomining technology. It is crafted using materials obtained through that process, those metals are kept inside a sphere of the ring, not the band. Karoline Healy became interested in phytomining or other type of biomining while working on a material research project for an electronics company that wanted to find more sustainable source of steel for their products. From that moment, she kept on learning about interactions between biological organisms and metals. Do you know that there’s a bacteria that eats gold from waste circuit boards? Or a fungus in Australia that gathers gold particles on its body?
Keeping this in mind, Healy started to connect the dots about the possibility of accessing precious metals using biology in a renewable way, be a part of the ecosystems while actively clean up waste. Her work was made possible thanks to collaboration with UK-based biomining start-up, Phyona. This company has mining sites similar to gardens planted in areas of polluted soil. Metals for H2ERǴ Phyona Ring came from Miners Garden at the Barnsley Main Collery, England. The ring features a mixed metallic dust contained inside a transparent sphere, it’s a jewellery that serves as symbolic link to the ring’s origins in New Miners Garden.
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