Mycelium 101: The Applications — Pt 2/2
Exploring the Innovative Agricultural, Industrial, and Medicinal Applications of Mycelium
Mycelium, the amazing and complicated network of fungal threads beneath the soil, has proven to be an innovative material with applications spanning numerous industries. Beyond its ecosystem improvement role, mycelium can be used for sustainable innovation, like creating things in packaging, construction, fashion, and more.
If you’re unfamiliar with the basics of mycelium, part 1 of this series provides a comprehensive overview of its biology and ecological importance.
Part 1 here 👉 https://manaallakhani.medium.com/mycelium-101-the-basics-pt-1-2-9e66a36039cc
In this article, part 2, we will explore mycelium’s diverse and innovative uses. By researching some of their technologies, achievements, and ongoing challenges, we can better understand how we can use the power of mycelium to create a more sustainable future.
Table of Contents
1.0 Agriculture
- 1.1 Mycoremediation
- 1.2 Soil Improvement Using Mycorrhizal Fungi
- 1.3 Soil Carbon Sequestration
2.0 Industrial Applications
- 2.1 Mycelium-Based Composites
- 2.2 Textile Production
- 2.3 Mycelium Bricks
- 2.4 Biofuels
3.0 Health Applications
- 3.1 Mycelium-Based Biomaterials for Tissue Scaffolding
1.0 Agriculture
1.1 Mycoremediation
In simple terms, mycoremediation is bioremediation that uses fungi to naturally break down environmental pollutants and toxins.
How it works
As discussed in the previous article, fungi can secrete enzymes like lignin, manganese peroxidases, and laccases.
These enzymes act as “biological catalysts,” they help chemical reactions happen faster by breaking down complex pollutants into more straightforward, less harmful compounds. This process is similar to how our digestive enzymes break down food in our stomachs.
Enzymes
Let’s focus on the three enzymes mentioned earlier:
🔑 Lignin Peroxidase:
This enzyme targets lignin, an organic polymer in plant cell walls. By breaking down lignin into smaller molecules, fungi can more easily decompose plant materials, which are often a significant part of waste pollutants in our environments. You can imagine this enzyme as a key that unlocks the dense structures of lignin, making it easier to break down.
🧼 Manganese Peroxidase:
This enzyme oxidizes manganese(II) to manganese(III), making the manganese more active. Once active, manganese(III) can help break down various environmental pollutants. Think of manganese(III) as a strong detergent that can remove hard-to-remove stains that other cleaners or enzymes can’t tackle.
✂️ Laccases:
This enzyme targets phenols and other aromatic compounds, common pollutants in industrial waste. Instead of stains, these are like challenging, tangled ropes of harmful chemicals. Laccases act like scissors that cut through these ropes, breaking the complex chemicals into smaller, less toxic pieces. Laccases are crucial for cleaning polluted soil and water.
The image from above is from a very interesting paper that you can find here if you want to go deeper into how these enzymes work + cool experiments with it
👉 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6274549/
Impact
Connecting this back to a real example, the white rot fungi, specifically Phanerochaete chrysosporium, is very efficient at degrading organic pollutants like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). These substances in contaminated soil or water bodies are known for their carcinogenic (cancerous) and mutagenic (inducing genetic mutations) properties.
To be specific, white rot fungi can actually break down these harmful pollutants. A study testing Phanerochaete chrysosporium (white rot fungi) reduced PAH levels in contaminated soil by over 95% within eight weeks 🤯By breaking down these toxic pollutants, fungi can transform hazardous areas into safer environments, improving environmental quality and public health.
Fungi can also break down various pollutants, including some resistant to other forms of chemical remediation. This makes it good for tackling contaminated environments with industrial waste, agricultural runoff, and urban pollutants. It’s also cost-effective compared to traditional methods like chemical treatment or soil excavation, which are often resource-intensive.
Next Steps
You might be wondering, if mycoremediation is so effective, why isn’t it used on a large scale?
There are a few reasons for this. Fungi require particular conditions to efficiently break down pollutants, including controlled temperature, pH, and moisture levels, which can be challenging in outdoor environments. Scaling up from lab studies to larger scales is also tricky and time-consuming. Additionally, fungal remediation can be slower than chemical or physical methods and less optimal for urgent clean-ups.
However, there is a lot of potential. Researchers are developing more resilient fungal strains that thrive without strict environmental controls. Advances in biotechnology are also being explored to enhance the efficiency of fungal enzymes and speed up the remediation process.
1.2 Soil Improvement using Mycorrhizal fungi
Mycorrhizal fungi are specific fungi that work together or live with them in a partnership as they benefit each other.
How it works
There are two main types of them though ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF)
Ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF):
These fungi form a layer or covering around plant roots and go into them between their root cells. You can imagine EMF as a delivery service that wraps around the outside of a building, which is a plant root. These delivered don’t actually enter the building but only deliver packages, which are the nutrients and water, straight to the door.
In this way, EMF helps trees, specifically mostly in temperate forests) to help them access water and nutrients (mainly phosphorus) easily. In return, though, they receive sugar and carbohydrates directly from the plant, helping.
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF):
This second type of fungi penetrates the root cells of the plants for very tiny, almost tree-like structures called arbuscules, which are essentially just a place where they exchange phosphorus, carbon, water, and other nutrients.
Instead of being a delivery that only drops a package outside the door like EMF, you can think of AMF as a specialized delivery person who not only brings you the packages but also comes inside to bring the plants nutrients and even sets up a mini distribution center inside, the plant cells, to distribute nutrients more efficiently.
Nutrient absorption
These fungi attach to plant roots with their hyphae (thread life structures) deep into the soil. This structure of hyphae becomes like the plant’s extra roots, increasing the plant’s ability to reach water and nutrients.
These fungi work efficiently to help plants absorb these antitank nutrients like phosphorus and nursing. Phosphorus is crucial for energy transfer and photosynthesis, while nitrogen is essential for building proteins. The fungi secrete enzymes to break down complex soil compounds and make it easier for the nutrients to be more cce simple for the plant.
Impact
This strong relationship between mycorrhizal fungi and plant roots helps plants absorb much more nutrients, leading to healthier and faster growth. This can help increase crop yields for farmers for example, significantly. AMF can increase phosphorus uptake by plants up to 70%, resulting in crop yields rising by around 30%. Utilizing mycorrhizal fungi applications or inoculations can reduce the need for and create healthier plants with better resistance to disease and pests, lending to more sustainable agriculture practices.
Not only is this beneficial to sustainable farming, but we can also use these fungi to improve the success rates of deforestation because they greatly help enhance gum tree growth and reliance. Aligning with that, creating better urban green spaces can be done better because we can use Christian applications to improve soil health in these areas and help more extensive plant growth.
Next steps
A couple of challenges must be overcome to use this potential of mycorrhizal fungi. Firstly, there is a vast diversity of these mycorrhizal fungi, each having unique benefits for different plant species, and understanding these interactions in the future is essential to actually applying them well. To help do this, researchers are conducting more and more field studies and analyses to understand the role and benefits of these mycorrhizal fungi.
Another huge problem is scalability, as trying to use mycorrhizal inoculation for larger agricultural use would require larger-scale cultivation of this fungus. Companies are trying to create better production techniques, such as bioreactors, and advancing the fermentation process to improve the mass production of fungi.
1.3 Soil carbon sequestration
As we saw above, mycorrhizal fungi have a ton of capabilities. Still, they also play an essential role in soil carbon sequestering, capturing, and storing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere within the soil. This, in turn, helps reduce the CO2 in our atmosphere to help meditate with climate change.
How it works
Form before, we knew that these fungi extend their hyphae very deep into the soil, which enhances the plant’s ability to access water and nutrients, but at the same time, this also helps to store carbon.
A considerable part of this carbons question process is the production of glomalin, a very sticky glycoprotein (a molecule that consists of carbohydrates and a protein) produced by AMF.
Step one: Glueing soil with glomalin
Glomalin is so sticky that it almost acts like a glue by binding soil particles together to form stable aggregates, just clusters of soil particles. These aggregates help the soil structure because they make it more fertile and porous, with many air particles, which helps store carbon better.
You can imagine glomalin at this stage like a natural cement that holds together bricks (soil particles) to form a stable structure. This stability prevents the carbon from returning to the atmosphere like a substantial building, stopping airflow.
Step two: formation of soil aggregates
Since the glomalin helps bind the soil particles into aggregates, it protects the carbon from microbial decomposition when complex organic substances break down into simpler substances and any physical interference/ distance.
These aggregates trap the carbon within their structure, significantly reducing the chance that it will be released into the atmosphere. This questioning process is essential for the longer-term carbon storage within the soil.
Step three: improving soil structure
Along with making better carbon, glomalin helps soil structure, making it more resistant to erosion or compaction. This improved soil structure helps plant growth by improving root penetration, water retention, and nutrient availability.
In this situation, the glomalin is the foundation of a building, in this case, the plant. A solid foundation keeps the rest of the building stable and more resilient to outside forces, like erosion and soil degradation.
Impact
Connecting this biology back to the real world, soils rich in these mycorrhizal fungi can store up to 40% more carbon compared to soils that don’t have them. Increased storage can help the soil become healthier and more productive.
As in the previous section about improving soils, we can use this in agricultural settings, and inoculating fields with mycorrhizal fungi like AMF has increased soil carbon levels a lot; not only did it lead to that, but it led to fertile soil, which leads to better crop performance, structure, and better retention.
Using this method can help soil quality greatly by acting as a soil conditioner that enriches the soil and repairs its structure, but also helping climate change at the same time.
Next steps/ Gaps
Like many other applications, developing more realizable or constant methods to verify the constraints of carbon sequestration in the soil and quantify the benefits is challenging. To combat this, researchers are working on better ways to help soil sampling and improve carbon measurement technologies to accurately assess soil carbon levels.
Another challenge is using economically viable mycorrhizal fungi for farmers to create widespread adoption. There needs to be a higher economic incentive for them, and they need to do this by making better programs to encourage/incentivize mycorrhizal fungi practices.
2.0 Industrial Applications
2.1 Mycelium-based composites
One of my favorites and one that I find a very promising application of mycelium is using it for sustainable packaging materials. Sustainable packaging materials are super crucial for residing environmental impact. On average, approximately in the world, we generate over 400 million tonnes of plastic waste yearly, with 60% of it ending up in natural environments or landfills, which is crazy. Developing micro-based composites (MBCs) is one of the innovations in this field, so let’s dive into it.
How it works
Mycelium-based composites (MBCs) are materials derived from the vegetative part of the fungi, which can be combined with agricultural waste like straw, cornhusks, sawdust, or even food waste. These composites are fully biodegradable, providing a better and eco-friendly alternative to plastic compared to transitional options.
Step one: Preparation
Mycelium is first cultivated on some substrate of agricultural waste that we mentioned above for the production process. This substrate first needs to be treated before adding mycelium by cutting it into small pieces and sterilizing it to remove any external microorganisms that could impact/ affect the mycelium.
After the substrate is prepared, it is inoculated with mycelium culture, whether liquid or solid. This involves mixing the fungal spores or mycelium fragments into the substrate and eventually distributing them.
Step two: Growth
This is kept in some controlled environment with specific conditions like template, humidity, and oxygen levels to try to optimize the fungus growth. During the growing phase, the mycelium grows and spreads in the substrate by seasonally breaking down the organic material to build it all together.
Depending on the mycelium strain and environmental conditions, this phase typically lasts a few days to a few weeks. Monitoring the growth wheel in the control environment can help to see if the mycelium is properly coloring the substrate.
Step three: Molding
After the mycelium has properly colonized the substrate, the mixture is placed into any mold or shape you want to create the object made for the composite material. These models could be like bricks or some styrofoam protective packaging.
In this stage, we keep the mycelium alive and have it growing to fill the mold compellingly, fill out the shape, and form a more structured shape.
Step four: Drying and Curing
After the mycelium is fully colonized and becomes the shape of the mold, we dry the fungi to stop them from growing further and to let them get harder. This process usually reduces the moisture levels (to below 10% typically)
After it’s dried, the composite can be cured by heating it to a specific temperature to make it more durable. They could also be treated with sealing or coating to improve moisture resistance and help them look pretty.
Impact
As we saw earlier, hundreds of millions of tonnes of transitional plastics are being dumped in our landfills, affecting our ecosystems. These plastics can take hundreds or even thousands of years to degrade, leaving so many microplastics that pollute our ecosystems even more.
Compared to MBCs, they are 100% biodegradable and can decompose within 40–60 days, leaving no harmful residues.
Apart from the after-effects, the production itself of traditional plastics has been skyrocketing; just in the United States, plastic production is responsible for 232 million metric tons of GHGs annually, equivalent to almost 120 GW of coal plants.
Unlike traditional plastics, MBCs produce up to 90% less CO2 than polystyrene, a common plastic type. One ton of mycelium-based materials generates only about 0.4 tons of CO2, compared to one ton of polystyrene, which emits almost 3.8 tons!
We can use these MBCs to develop better packaging materials like styrofoam and replace them.
Next Steps/ Gaps
This sounds amazing and too good to be accurate, but to meet the massive demand for sustainable packing that’s still growing constantly, the methods for more considerable scale cultivation and production must be scaled up.
That includes creating better growth conditions and automating processes to reduce all these costs, which would reduce the costs of the MBCs. Currently, scaling up production can reduce costs by up to 40%.
Decreasing the price of MBCs and helping them be a better option not only environmentally but economically can be a vast obstacle for companies to integrate into packaging.
2.2 Textile Production
Similar to the plastics mentioned above, the leather industry is also terrible. Emits 130 million tons of CO2 emissions every year; that’s about the same amount of emissions that over 28 million cars produce. Our textile production has relied on unsustainable materials like leather for a long time. We need to start reversing or at least stopping the harmful effects we are having on our economy. Innovations like using mycelium leather are a sustainable way to prevent these adverse effects within the fashion industry.
How it works
Mycelium leather is similar to leather but is made from the fungi’s vegetative parts. We make it very similar to how we make mycelium-based composites for packaging materials.
Steps one, two, and three are the same as making the SBCs from the section above, so here are the different steps.
(refer to the how-it-works section on mycelium-based composites above for steps one, two, and three)
Step four: Processing
After the mycelium has fully colonized the substrate and we have reached the thickness you want, it must be harvested. The timing of this step is critical to ensure the right balance of flexibility and strength to replicate a leather-like texture. It is then flattened and sheet pressed to get into a thin material.
The harvest mycelium dries, the same as the process from before, but after, it is treated with dyes or coatings to make it look late.
This leather can be molded into various forms for specific product designs like panels for bags, shoes, or any other leather clothing.
Impact
Compared to transitional leather, it uses 99% less water compared to traditional leather products. Specifically, producing just one square meter of mycelium leather requires less than a quarter of the water for the same amount of minimal leather.
It also emits 80% less CO2 compared to other leather products, and the entire lifecycle of producing mycelium leather, from cultivating processing, results in much less GHG emissions.
Next Steps/ Gaps
Like so many other mycelium products, we need to develop better to optimize the growth and production processes to ensure consistency and efficiency. This includes improving substrate preparation, inoculation techniques, and environmental control systems.
Doing this by investing in automation technologies and building more extensive production facilities to try to create mycelium leather in more significant portions
Another huge hurdle is customer awareness. Often, people don’t know the adverse effects of something like leather, so awareness needs to be made about these products and support for using sustainable materials like mycelium leather. For companies, this could include subsidies, tax incentives, and grants for companies that adopt eco-friendly practices.
2.3 Mycelium Bricks
Much like the other two industrial applications of mycelium packaging materials and fake leather, mycelium breaks are a sustainable and eco-friendly electric to traditional building materials. These bricks are made from mycelium, which is grown on agricultural waste. This process recycles waste like the other two applications and creates lightweight, strong, and biodegradable material.
How it works
Instead of going deep again into the process, refer back to the section if you still need to read it already of mycelium-based composites that go through the process of actually making it, but instead, let’s dive into how they work and why.
Thermal conductivity
One of the leading reasons mycelium bricks are so good is that they have low thermal conductivity capabilities, which means they have an inability or decreased ability to transfer heat. Thermal conductivity measures a specific material to conduct heat, and the lower value is a good thing because it will increase the insulation capability.
From some perspective, traditional concrete has a thermal conductivity of 1.7W/m·K versus the mycelium bricks with a thermal conductivity of just 0.05 W/m·K!
This better insulation power of these bricks can help indoor temperature by reducing the heat transfer between the inside and outside of the building built with these mycelium bricks. This results in much lower energy requirements for heating in the winter and cooling/ AC in the summer, which can lead to energy savings and help the environment.
But how does that even work?
As I’ve mentioned, mycelium is a dense and vast network of small hyphae that form this dense structure. This structure, though, is filled with tiny microscopic air pockets, giving them these insulting properties.
In solids, when some sort of material is dense and very solid, heat easily transfers through the direct contact of atoms and molecules; this is the case with concrete or metal.
But with mycelium bricks, with so many air pockets, the heat has to pass through the solid and the air. As air also has a thermal conductivity of about 0.024 W/m·K, it is much lower than solids; it acts as a more substantial barrier to what transfer.
Another thing with this is that as the mycelium bricks have this sort of “porous” (with pores/ small holes) type structure, and as heat cannot travel in a straight line, the heat has to navigate through this maze-like network the hyphae have created which also slows down the heat transfer.
Fire Resistance
Apart from these insulation benefits, mycelium bricks are also quite fire resistant, adding to a safety factor. You might think that mushrooms or mycelium are easily flammable. Still, they pass something called the ASTM E84 standards, a standardized testing method that tests the burning characteristics of building products and how they could spread the fire.
When exposed or lit on fire, mycelium-based building materials produce much less toxic fumes than traditional insulation materials such as polystyrene or polyurethane foam. This reduced toxicity level is essential to enhance safety during cases of fire because it reduces the risk of inhaling harmful substances.
Impact
Production Waste Reduction
Firstly, compared to traditional concrete bricks, mycelium bricks require much less water. Conventional brick production can use up to 200 or more water per square meter of bricks, while mycelium bricks require just 10 liters per square meter. That’s around a 95% reduction in just water usage.
To put this into perspective, if you wanted to build an average house, like a small single-family home or a larger apartment, it would need a significant swimming pool of around 20,000 liters of water.
On the other hand, using mycelium bricks to build the same building would require only a certain amount of water to fill a small inflatable kid pool that holds about 1,000 liters.
Not only do we reduce water waste, but we can also reduce agricultural waste, which helps in waste management by removing more organic waste from landfills. Each square meter of mycelium brick can use up to 10 kilograms of agricultural waste, significantly reducing the amount of garbage being contributed to landfills.
Unlike traditional clay brick production, which is relatively energy intensive as you must fire at very high temperatures (around 1,000C), this process consumes around 1.5–2.0 MJ of energy per brick. Compared to mycelium bricks, they are grown at room temperature, which reduces the energy input needed for production.
Mycelium bricks are much lighter than traditional bricks, reducing the transition energy and costs. A clay brick weighs about 2.7kg, and a mycelium brick can weigh almost less than 1kg, which saves a lot of transportation fuel.
Personal Energy Savings
As discussed above, with mycelium’s fantastic insulation properties, a building insulated with mycelium bricks can decrease energy consumption by 30–40%. For an average educational building that’s using 12,000 kWh every year, this could translate to saving about 4,800 kWh annually. But in terms of financial savings, you could get (on the basis that the average electricity cost is $0.13/ kWh, which can result in around $700 per year.
Personal Reduction of Carbon Emissions
Mycelium-insulating buildings can reduce their carbon footprint by lowering the demand for heating and cooling systems.f Going with the same metric of saving around 4,800 kWh every year, this could reduce about 3.2 metric tons of CO2 emissions each year (this is based on an average emission factor of 0.6kg of CO2 per kWh for the electricity consumed)
Next Steps/ Gaps
While there are a lot of benefits to using mycelium bricks, some challenges still prevent them from going on a large scale. Like everything else, producing these bricks on a large scale can be very resource-intensive and costly to keep all conditions good and grow consistently. Research is trying to make more streamlined products to create a more efficient and economically viable way to deliver them.
Another challenge is integrating mycelium bricks into currently existing building codes and regulations. Standards, like other industries, for the bullying industry take time to adapt to new materials and have this more influential acceptance, but progress is being made.
2.4 Biofuels
As our world constantly deteriorates, the energy industry is one of the most significant factors exacerbating environmental conditions. Biofuels present a promising avenue to mitigate these adverse effects. Traditional fuels are derived from crude oil, undergoing a complex and environmentally damaging refining process. In contrast, biofuels offer a more eco-friendly option.
However, common biofuels like corn ethanol rely on food crops, bringing its own production challenges. Applying mycelium in biofuel production can bridge this gap, offering an innovative and sustainable solution.
How It Works
Before going deeper into mycelium-based biofuel production, it is essential to understand how other fuels are produced for comparison.
Traditional Fuel Production
Traditional fuel production starts with drilling crude oil from underground reservoirs. This crude oil is transported to refineries where it undergoes various processes, such as distillation and cracking, to separate it into components like gasoline, diesel, and kerosene. The downside is the significant environmental impact of extraction and refining processes.
The drilling process can lead to ecosystem destruction and oil spills, causing long-lasting environmental damage. Refineries emit tons of air pollutants, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds. Additionally, the transportation of these refined products contributes to 29% of the total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, significantly driving climate change.
Corn Ethanol Production
Corn ethanol, a common biofuel, begins with the harvesting of corn, which is then milled into a fine powder. Enzymes are added to convert the starches in the corn into sugars, primarily glucose. These sugars are fermented by yeast to produce ethanol, which is then distilled to achieve high purity. The ethanol is subsequently blended with gasoline.
While corn ethanol is a renewable resource, it presents several issues. One major problem is its competition with the food supply. Large-scale use of corn for ethanol can increase food prices and contribute to food scarcity.
Corn farming also uses a lot of water, pesticides, and fertilizer. Producing one gallon of corn ethanol requires approximately 170 gallons of water, highlighting its inefficiency.
Mycelium-Based Biofuel Production
Mycelium-based biofuels utilize lignocellulosic biomass, like wood chips or other agricultural residues, rich in cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. The cellulose and hemicellulose are to be used and converted into fermentable sugars, while lignin is used for energy. This process involves several technical steps, each crucial for the efficient production of bioethanol.
Step One: Pretreatment
The first step in converting lignocellulosic biomass is pretreatment. This involves the mechanical or chemical breakdown of the lignin structure within the biomass to increase the accessibility of cellulose and hemicellulose. You can imagine pretreatment like soaking a dirty or crusty dish to get as many food particles to soften so it’s easier to clean.
Methods like acid hydrolysis, steam explosion, and ammonia fiber expansion are employed to disrupt the rigid plant cell walls. Mycelium naturally produces enzymes that aid in this pretreatment process, making it more efficient and environmentally friendly.
Step Two: Enzymatic Hydrolysis
After pretreatment, the biomass undergoes enzymatic hydrolysis, the first processing step. Specific enzymes, such as cellulases and xylanases, which are actually produced by mycelium, are introduced in this step. Cellulases break down cellulose into glucose monomers, while xylanases degrade hemicellulose to xylose.
The efficiency of this process depends on factors like enzyme activity, temperature, pH, and the presence of inhibitors from the pretreatment process.
The natural production of these enzymes by mycelium reduces the need for externally sourced enzymes, lowering production costs and enhancing sustainability. Like the last step, this step uses soap instead of dissolving small food particles to remove grease, which is more challenging to clean.
Step Three: Fermentation
The fermentable sugars produced from enzymatic hydrolysis are then subjected to fermentation. Microorganisms such as yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) or genetically engineered bacteria convert the glucose and xylose into bioethanol.
This bioconversion process is optimized by controlling temperature, pH, and nutrient availability. The choice of microorganism is crucial, as it must efficiently ferment glucose and xylose to maximize ethanol yield.
This fermentation process is very similar to how we use yeast to turn dough into bread by converting sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide to help make the dough ice and make brea
Step Four: Distillation
The final step in producing mycelium-based biofuels is distillation. The fermented mixture contains ethanol, water, and other byproducts.
Distillation involves heating the mixture to separate ethanol based on its lower boiling point than water.
This step is crucial for obtaining high-purity ethanol, which can be used as a biofuel. Advanced distillation techniques, such as azeotropic distillation or molecular sieves, further enhance the purity and yield of the bioethanol.
Impact
The production of mycelium-based biofuels presents a sustainable and innovative approach to biofuel production. Using this lignocellulosic biomass, which there is a lot of in specific food crops, significantly reduces environmental impact compared to traditional fuel production.
Mycelium in this application reduces the need for harsh chemicals and external enzymes, lowering production costs and enhancing sustainability. Additionally, this approach provides a way to utilize agricultural residues and other waste materials, contributing to a circular economy.
Next Steps/ Gaps
Despite its potential, mycelium-based biofuel production faces several challenges. Optimizing the pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis processes to maximize yield and efficiency is crucial.
Researchers are constantly trying to improve the stability and activity of mycelium-produced enzymes. Another challenge is scaling up production to meet commercial demands while maintaining cost-effectiveness. And lastly, integrating mycelium-based biofuels into the existing energy infrastructure requires significant investment and regulatory support.
3.0 Health Applications
3.1 Mycelium-Based Biomaterials for Tissue Scaffolding
Synthetic scaffolds are often used for treatment if you suffer a severe bone injury. However, they carry a 40–50% risk of triggering inflammation and are typically animal-derived, raising ethical concerns and disease transmission risks.
An innovative solution involves using mycelium-based biomaterials. These materials are biodegradable, sustainable, and biocompatible, offering a better scaffold for tissue growth and regeneration than traditional animal-derived options.
How it works
Step One: Cultivation
The first step in this process is cultivating mycelium on some substrate so the hyphae can grow their dense structure. This structure acts as the foundation of the scaffold.
Agricultural byproducts or lignocellulosic substrates like sawdust, straw, wood chips, or corn stover can be used for mycelium growth. These substrates must be steel or scaled as they will be used inside the human body.
Step Two: Scaffold Formation
Once the mycelium has colonized the upstate throughout, it goes from the processing step to form a scaffold. In this step, the mycelium is dried to remove any moisture, sterilize it, and remove any contamination. The drying process also gives the scaffold a proper structure and makes it ha. The scaffold can then be shaped and molded to meet the specific requirements.
Step Three: Functionalization
It can be combined with other biomaterials like hydrogels, growth factors, or nanoparticles to improve the scaffold. The hydrogels can be infused into the scaffold to help the moisture return and help better cell growth. The growth factors can be used to help stimulate cell growth and differentiation. Lastly, nanoparticles can be used to improve the mechanical strength and increase the biological activity of the scaffold itself.
Impact
The potential impact of mycelium-based biomaterials in tissue engineering is substantial. These materials are a sustainable and cost-effective alternative to traditional scaffolds.
They are biocompatible and biodegradable, reducing the risk of adverse reactions and the need for additional surgeries to remove the scaffold. To go further, mycelium-based biomaterials can be tailored to meet specific medical needs, such as wound healing, bone regeneration, and skin grafts.
Mycelium-based scaffolds have also shown promising results in supporting cell growth and tissue regeneration. For instance, mycelium scaffolds have demonstrated comparable or superior performance to traditional scaffolds in bone regeneration applications, potentially reducing costs by up to 50%. This cost reduction is super essential in making advanced medical treatments more accessible.
Next steps/ Gaps
These materials’ mechanical properties and stability must be optimized for tissue engineering applications. Ensuring extreme fertility and biocompatibility of mycelium-based scaffolds is also critical to their safe use in medical applications, which is also a huge problem.
Although various substrates can be used for mycelium cultivation, those intended for medical applications must undergo rigorous processing to ensure they are free from contaminants and safe for use in the human body.
Research focuses on enhancing mycelium-based biomaterials’ mechanical properties and biological performance through material processing and functionalization.
Advances in bioprinting and tissue engineering techniques are being explored to create complex and functional tissue constructs. Bioprinting, which is super cool, can allow for the precise placement of cells and materials, creating more intricate and compelling scaffolds.
I hope this gave you a good understanding of the potential of mycelium in many different applications. If you enjoyed this article, give a round of applause. Make sure to check out some of my other articles.
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