Omani design collective Nawa has created a plastic-free filament for 3D printing using waste date seeds, which is on display at Dutch Design Week.

Called RePit as a play on the word "repeat", the composite material was designed to offer a more sustainable alternative to the thermoplastic filaments traditionally used by 3D printers to build up objects layer by layer.

To make the material, the Nawa team sourced date pits from palm trees at their shared farm in Oman, where the fruit grows in abundance.

"Usually, the seeds are just left lying about but we wanted to create another life for them," Nawa architectural engineer Umayma Al Hinai told Dezeen.

The date seeds are crushed and mixed with natural Omani clay and palm fibres to make an iteration of a traditional water-resistant lime mortar known as sarooj, Al Hinai explained.

"Sarooj is something we use back home, usually for building houses," said the engineer. "The material has zero plastic in it and is made from only natural materials."

For its presentation at Dutch Design Week, the team is showing 15 different 3D-printed tiles with decorative undulating patterns informed by the shape of sand dunes. The tiles were fired and glazed in "the same way you would finish any ceramic", said Al Hinai.

The team is still in the preliminary stages of developing the date-based filament, which Nawa began to experiment with in March. But the collective plans to upscale RePit so it can be spooled into any fused-deposition modelling 3D printer.

"In 2022, the global date palm industry produced approximately 975,000 tonnes of date seeds, which are often considered waste," said Nawa.

"Born from the rich tradition of Arab hospitality, where dates symbolise generosity, Nawa is expanding this legacy by transforming date seeds into sustainable 3D printing materials."

Dutch Design Week is in full swing in Eindhoven. For this year's event, 10 former recipients of the Dutch Design Awards have nominated 10 rising stars making waves across the Netherlands, whose projects are on display at Microlab Hall alongside RePit.

Previous applications of date waste include a chunky console table by Emirati architect Sara Abu Farha and engineer Khaled Shalka, made from "datecrete" – a date seed-based cementitious material with no traces of resin or concrete.

The photography is courtesy of Nawa.

Dutch Design Week 2024 takes place in Eindhoven from 19 to 27 October. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.