Mushroom For Improvement
By Hannah Isom
There was a time when having fungi in your house was frowned upon. But with the pressure mounting to reduce our carbon footprint, innovators are frantically researching new ways to go green. To this end, two university chums have come up with a new form of building insulation made (almost) entirely out of mushrooms.The insulating board consists of an entirely organic blend of water, flour, perlite (a mineral blend found in potting soil) and their secret ingredient: oyster mushrooms.
Though this may sound like something you’d find on the menu at a vegan wholefood café, it actually makes an insulation material as effective as commercially produced fibreglass.
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The blocks are produced by making a mixture of water, starch, minerals and hydrogen peroxide and pouring it into 7x7-inch moulds, into which they inject the living mushroom cells.
The moulds are then left to culture in a dark dingy environment (what better place than under the bed of an adolescent male) where the mushroom cells start to grow into thousands of interwoven strands.
After a few weeks, you are left with a 1-inch thick block of sustainable insulation has grown, and probably a very smelly bedroom.
The blocks must then be dried out to stop other nasty bacteria growing in them, and the finished product looks a lot like a giant cracker. Delicious!
Sadly you won’t be seeing Greensulate in the shops anytime soon. The dynamic duo now need to prove that they can make bigger pieces of the material and conduct more tests to see how it fairs under different environmental conditions.
McIntyre and Bayer eventually hope to use their entrepreneurial prowess to tap into the growing marked for sustainable eco-friendly products, though they admit that Greensulate is still probably a while away from commercial launch.
Whereas currently available eco building materials are expensive and largely produced from recycled products, Greensulate can be grown from scratch at low cost, giving it a possible edge over competitors.
Get more from Hannah or sustain your pleasure in these parts:
- Spoof - Hell to cut CO2 emissions
- Annoying - More great inventions by whippersnappers
- Review - Collapse by Jared Diamond
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