Renewable and Compostable Fungus Based Plastics - Establishing the Structure/Property/Processing Relationships to Facilitate Commercialization

可再生和可生物降解材料是可持续地球的关键要素。Ecovative Design，LLC(Ecovative)创造了可堆肥的菌丝体(真菌)生物塑料/生物复合材料。这种材料在室温下黑暗中生长(因此加工只需要很少的能量)，然后加热/干燥以赶走水分并使真菌失活。这些新的可生物降解和可再生材料正作为以石油为基础的、难以回收或再利用的发泡聚苯乙烯和聚乙烯泡沫的替代品进行商业销售。这些以真菌为基础的生物聚合物有可能被用于其他市场，如目前使用石油塑料的交通和娱乐市场。然而，为了满足这一潜力，需要了解结构/属性/加工关系。该奖项支持基础研究，以提供有关如何优化和定制这些新材料的性能所需的知识。该项目是伦斯勒理工学院、联合学院和Ecovative的合作项目，其影响将是扩大高度可再生、可堆肥和廉价材料可以取代石油衍生产品的应用范围。Ecovative的生物塑料/生物复合材料是由农业废物、原料、营养素和真菌接种剂的混合物制成的。由此产生的生物聚合物/生物复合材料由自组装的丝状菌丝体(菌丝体真菌的丝状细胞构件)组成，生长在农业废弃物周围并安全地锚定。因此，生物聚合物/生物复合材料的性能强烈依赖于农业废弃物的形态、菌丝排列、生物复合材料的密度和定植程度。与所有材料开发一样，结构/性能/加工关系是优化物理性能的关键。为了调整结构，我们将探索能够潜在地控制菌丝排列、菌丝强度以及生物聚合物密度的加工技术(模型生长底物、排列的纤维素纤维底物的静电纺丝、菌丝在压力下的生长和冷冻干燥)。我们将使用成像技术和图像分析来表征所形成的形态。一系列的机械性能将从单个菌丝的规模和整个菌丝的进展情况进行测量。结果将与连续体级复合模型进行比较，作为评估当前模型的适用性的起点。

Renewable and biodegradable materials are a key element to a sustainable planet. Ecovative Design, LLC (Ecovative) has created new compostable mycelium-based (fungus) bioplastic/biocomposite materials. The material is grown at room temperature in the dark (thus requiring little energy for processing) and heated/dried to drive off water and inactivate the fungus. These new biodegradable and renewable materials are being sold commercially as replacements for expanded polystyrene and polyethylene foams that are petroleum-based and difficult to recycle or reuse. These fungus-based biopolymers have the potential to be used in additional markets such as transportation and recreation that currently use petroleum-based plastics. To meet that potential, however, the structure/property/processing relationships need to be understood. This award supports fundamental research to provide needed knowledge on how to optimize and tailor the properties of these new materials. The impact of this project, which is a collaboration between Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Union College, and Ecovative, will be to expand the range of applications where highly renewable, compostable, and inexpensive materials can replace petroleum-derived products. Ecovative's bioplastic / biocomposite materials are created from a mixture of agricultural waste, feedstock, nutrients, and fungal inoculant. The resulting biopolymer/biocomposites consist of a self-assembled filamentous mass of hyphae (the filament cellular building block of mycelium fungi) grown around and securely anchoring the agriwaste. Thus, the biopolymer/biocomposite properties are strongly dependent on the agriwaste morphology, the hyphae alignment, density of the biocomposites, and degree of colonization. As in all materials development, structure/property/processing relationships are key to optimizing physical performance. To tailor the structure, we will explore processing techniques (electrospinning of model growth substrate, aligned cellulose fiber substrate, growth of hyphae under pressure, and freeze drying) that can potentially control hyphae alignment and hyphae strength as well as biopolymer density. We will use imaging techniques and image analysis to characterize the morphologies that develop. A range of mechanical properties will be measured from the scale of individual hyphae and progressing up through the bulk. The results will be compared to continuum level composite models as a starting point to evaluate the applicability of current models.