Mushroom: Opening new doors to produce ultra light weight materials

Fomes fomentarius commonly known as tinder fungus is a unique species of fungi with high strength, hardness, fracture toughness and other mechanical properties that are not typically found in the plump bodies of mushrooms. the common resident of birch tree thrive by decomposing cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin(white rot).

Recent research shows that F.fomentarius, is a functionally graded material with three discrete layers ,having mycelium as the primary component with its own unique micro-structure and an extracellular matrix that firmly holds each layer. Due to its exceptional structure the fomes fruiting bodies can be altered to create diverse materials with distinct characteristics by minor alterations to the cell morphology and extracellular polymeric compositions. Additionally F. fomentarius achieves high efficiency without property trade-off. Future challenges related to cost, time, mass production and sustainability is aided as the growing material is of simple ingredients.

New generations of mechanically strong and sustainable lightweight materials with a wide range of implementations can be developed in near future.

References:

1. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade5417

2. https://phys.org/news/2023-02-mushrooms-plastics-high-performance-ultra-light-materials.html