Fungi can only be eaten? They can also be used to build houses, clothes, and electronic devices

Fungi are not only edible, they can also be used as materials to make bags, clothing, electronic devices and even buildings. Such materials are often plastic, renewable, degradable, environmentally friendly, and the production method is more sustainable.

When you think of fungi, what comes to mind? Is it the mold on the surface of food or the mushrooms in the hot pot?

In fact, fungi are not only edible, they can also be used as materials to make luggage, clothing, electronic devices and even buildings.

Fungal composites can be made into "bricks" and "leather"

In early 2022, researchers at Columbia University in the United States developed a fungus-bacteria biocomposite material based on lignocellulose. The composite material is plastic, foldable, and renewable, providing new ideas for the design of biocomposite materials.

As the issue of carbon emissions has gradually received attention from all countries, finding more sustainable building materials has always been a research topic for scientists, and some researchers have turned their attention to fungi. In this study, researchers fed a fungus with wood waste, then mixed the two together and poured them into a brick-shaped mold. After a few weeks, the mixture of fungi and wood waste combined to form a dense mesh that filled the entire mold. After the mixture was removed from the mold, a "brick" that can be used for construction was born. In order to verify whether it can really be used to build buildings, the researchers used the "brick" to build an arch several feet high. It turned out that these "bricks" are not only environmentally friendly, but can even achieve self-repair.

Also for the purpose of protecting the ecology, animal leather is expected to be replaced by fungal "leather". At present, research institutes and enterprises from many countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Finland have conducted research on the production of fungal "leather" and have achieved certain results. The fungal leather production methods adopted by different research institutions are similar. They mainly use agricultural and forestry waste such as sawdust as a culture matrix to feed fungi. The hyphae will spread and stretch in the matrix, branch repeatedly, and form a mesh of hyphae. Usually, fungal biomass can be harvested in just a few weeks. Subsequently, glucan biopolymers and biodegradable chitin are added to it for treatment to obtain leather-like finished products. Researchers said that clothes made of this leather-like material have similar durability and feel to those made of animal leather, but its production method is obviously more sustainable. At present, how to stably obtain uniform mycelium clusters is still one of the main challenges facing the production of fungal "leather". Only mycelium clusters with uniform properties can provide leather-like materials with consistent thickness, beautiful color, and good mechanical properties.

Battery substrate made from fungi is insulated and resistant to high temperatures

In an issue of Science Advances in late 2022, a recent study conducted by Austrian scientists used fungal skin as a material to make a battery substrate, and its conductive performance is almost comparable to that of current substrates made of standard plastic polymers. Even if this substrate is bent more than 2,000 times, it will continue to work.

According to the researchers, the fungi used in their study usually grow on rotten wood, and it forms a layer of epidermis to protect the mycelium, the "root" of the fungus, from foreign bacteria and other fungi. When the researchers extracted and dried these epidermis, they found that it was about the same thickness as a piece of paper. It was not only very soft, but also a good insulator that could withstand temperatures above 200 degrees Celsius, making it very suitable as a manufacturing material for circuit substrates. If kept away from moisture and ultraviolet rays, this epidermis may last for hundreds of years, and more importantly, it can decompose in the soil in about two weeks. The researchers said that such substrates can be used to design electronic products with a short service life, such as wearable sensors or radio tags.

Source: Science and Technology Daily, Inner Mongolia Association for Science and Technology's "Cloud Science Popularization" APP

Editor: Qiao Yuxin

Reviewer: Naren Na Zhao Lewen