The footwear industry is highly unsustainable with 23 billion pairs being produced annually, leading to vast resource overconsumption. Manufacture currently generates 13.5kg of CO2 emissions per pair, and uses over 360 manufacturing steps and 65 parts. This project creates 3D printed monomaterial footwear automatically generated from a 3D foot scan, providing optimal fit, and reducing CO2 emissions to 23.8% using foaming TPU. A biodegradable bacterial nanocellulose material of novel composition was developed, improved sterilisation method for batch quantities and use of extrusion 3D printing.

Key innovations include the algorithm created to automatically generate personalised footwear from a 3D foot scan within 6 seconds, the use of a variable density TPU for producing over 30 functional prototypes, and the development of a self-healing genetically modified biomaterial.

Combining these leads to a full product system which aims to significantly reduce the environmental impact of the footwear industry by reducing resource consumption and materials impact, whilst also improving the quality of fit and comfort.

Each innovation was considered with scalability to convert this research into a startup. The foaming TPU can be 3D printed on standard at-home single extruder printers, but can still have variable properties by modifying printing parameters (i.e. midsole is firm/supportive, and the upper soft/flexible). This allows improved scalability compared to existing brands as the printers are lower cost/simpler. The genetic modification and purification process proposed for the bacteria would result in decreased likelihood of contamination, 4x yield and no harmful chemicals during sterilisation.