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Wooltech

Hinna Khan

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Hinna is a multidisciplinary designer focusing on how material intelligence and nature’s technology can shape the future of sustainable design. She combines this with a passion for creating broader social impact, focusing on underrepresented communities such as farmers. Her recent projects include revolutionising the tech industry with all-wool electronics and rethinking wasteful painting systems through peel-and-stick paint.

Hinna is a multidisciplinary designer focusing on how material intelligence and nature’s technolo...

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The British wool industry is collapsing. Coarse-grade fleeces now fetch as little as 60p/kg and are often often discarded or burnt, costing more to shear than returns received. As a result, rare British sheep breeds are being crossbred or lost in pursuit of ‘higher value’ wool, threatening biodiversity, heritage, and local farming livelihoods. Meanwhile, the electronics industry remains heavily reliant on synthetic, extractive materials, fuelling a mounting global e-waste crisis while overlooking the exceptional technical properties of natural fibres.

Wooltech pioneers fully wool-based electronics, using waste wool for both casings and conductive pathways. It eliminates the need for metal wiring, plastic housings, and metal-based PCB layers, which account for most global e waste. Through advanced manufacturing techniques the material itself become conductive where needed. The result is a fully biodegradable, easily disassembled, and materially unified system with fewer components- supporting British heritage breeds and farming communities.

Final work

A person opening up the inside of a wool biomaterial torch. Inside is a brown line. This is the wool conductive pathway which replaces wiring.

Using advanced manufacturing, wool’s natural 52% carbon content is turned into conductive tracings—twice as cost-effective as metal with no performance trade-offs! These biodegradable pathways are formed directly from the material itself, merging manufacturing processes and reducing components. Solders are made from wool-based conductive ink, which at end-of-life dissolves in water, allowing full disassembly. The product biodegrades in 3–4 months, and components can be reused.

  • A hand holding a wool based torch
  • Close up of the inner wool based conductive tracings of the torch. The conductive pathways are all light brown going which go down the torch.
  • Wool biomaterial closeup. It has a natural cream colour and a subtly textured surface, with fine fibres visibly protruding from the edges
A woman smiling and holding a wool biomaterial torch. She is surrounded by piles of raw wool.

Wooltech aims to pave the way for a regenerative materials future by inspiring industries to adapt heritage materials for today’s needs. It challenges outdated perceptions and encourages new uses in diverse sectors to utilise nature’s technology and material intelligence to drive innovation for a sustainable world.

Research and process

  • Lab equipment laid out, including test tubes, magnifying glasses, and petri dishes, showcasing the tools used to create the wool biomaterial.
  • Step by step process to make the wool biomaterial. Raw wool, combine with biopolymers, mould, then air dry to harden
  • 2 images. The first shows a flock of sheep in a pen. The second image shows a farmer sheering a sheep using traditional blade sheering
  • A series of wool material samples and experiments laid out a white background.
  • A lit matchstick resting on the surface of a wool-based biomaterial. Despite the direct contact with the flame, the material remains fire retardent
  • A top-down view of the wool biomaterial being molded into tubes and intricate shapes, including a torch.

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Wooltech

The British wool industry is collapsing. Coarse-grade fleeces now fetch as little as 60p/kg and are often often discarded or burnt, costing more to shear than returns received. As a result, rare British sheep breeds are being crossbred or lost in pursuit of ‘higher value’ wool...

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