Mushrooms as insulation, it’s not as crazy as you might think
Insulating buildings is one of the most important aspects of the building process. Insulation not only has to, well, insulate, but it also has to not grow nasty things and last for a long time (who wanted to rip open all their outside walls every few years–if ever). Insulation, which is typically fiberglass now, does take resources to make and isn’t recyclable (although it is made from recycled glass). Now, what if you could grow insulation? Yeah, grow. Couple smart guys figured out how to make a growing medium for oyster mushroom spores that could become suitable insulation material:
Placed in a dark environment, the cells start to grow, digesting the starch as food and sprouting thousands of root-like cellular strands. A week to two weeks later, a 1-inch-thick panel of insulation is fully grown. It’s then dried to prevent fungal growth, making it unlikely to trigger mold and fungus allergies, according to Bayer. The finished product resembles a giant cracker in texture.
“It really allows for a myriad of uses,” said McIntyre. He said they’ve envisioned modifying the product to make structural panels that could be grown and assembled onsite to produce sustainable homes.
“Green building materials should be evaluated on the idea of cradle to cradle,” said Evelyne Michaut of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
In the cradle-to-cradle industrial model, goods should either be fully biodegradable or reusable, limiting waste and pollution, according to Michaut, a sustainable city advocate from Santa Monica, Calif.
“That’s the ultimate environmental reference,” she said, adding that it seems like Greensulate is on its way to fulfilling that criteria.
For Bayer and McIntyre, their next step will be creating larger pieces of Greensulate to use in building a wall. From there, they’ll perform further testing to see how the product stands up to various elements, including saturation and humidity. McIntyre said they have one two-year-old sample that’s been exposed to the elements and shown no sign of degradation. Source: Mushrooms become source for eco-building - Yahoo! News
Cool stuff. Of course, it’s a little ways from being a part of your next building project, but it shows the amazing untapped potential of natural materials.
Hat tip: Boing Boing