Posted on 07/27/2010 11:30:19 AM PDT by decimon
Packing foam now entering the marketplace is engineered from mushrooms and agricultural waste
A new packing material that grows itself is now appearing in shipped products across the country.
The composite of inedible agricultural waste and mushroom roots is called Mycobond™, and its manufacture requires just one eighth the energy and one tenth the carbon dioxide of traditional foam packing material.
And unlike most foam substitutes, when no longer useful, it makes great compost in the garden.
The technology was the brainchild of two former Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute undergraduates, Gavin McIntyre and Eben Bayer, who founded Ecovative Design of Green Island, N.Y., to bring their idea into production.
"We don't manufacture materials, we grow them," says McIntyre. "We're converting agricultural byproducts into a higher-value product."
Because the feedstock is based on renewable resources, he adds, the material has an economic benefit as well: it is not prone to the price fluctuations common to synthetic materials derived from such sources as petroleum. "All of our raw materials are inherently renewable and they are literally waste streams," says McIntyre. "It's an open system based on biological materials."
With support from NSF, McIntyre and Bayer are developing a new, less energy-intensive method to sterilize their agricultural-waste starter material--a necessary step for enabling the mushroom fibers, called mycelia, to grow. McIntyre and Bayer are replacing a steam-heat process with a treatment made from cinnamon-bark oil, thyme oil, oregano oil and lemongrass oil.
The sterilization process, which kills any spores that could compete with Ecovative's mushrooms, is almost as effective as the autoclaving process used to disinfect medical instruments and will allow the Mycobond™ products to grow in the open air, instead of their current clean-room environment.
"The biological disinfection process simply emulates nature," says McIntyre, "in that it uses compounds that plants have evolved over centuries to inhibit microbial growth. The unintended result is that our production floor smells like a pizza shop."
Much of the manufacturing process is nearly energy-free, with the mycelia growing around and digesting agricultural starter material--such as cotton seed or wood fiber--in an environment that is both room-temperature and dark. Because the growth occurs within a molded plastic structure (which the producers customize for each application), no energy is required for shaping the products.
Once fully formed, each piece is heat-treated to stop the growth process and delivered to the customer--though with the new, easier, disinfection treatment, Bayer and McIntyre are hoping the entire process can be packaged as a kit, allowing shipping facilities, and even homeowners, to grow their own Mycobond™ materials.
Based on a preliminary assessment McIntyre and Bayer conducted under their Phase I NSF SBIR award, the improvements to the sterilization phase will reduce the energy of the entire manufacturing process to one fortieth of that required to create polymer foam.
"This project is compelling because it uses innovative technology to further improve Ecovative's value, while also providing the environmental benefits that NSF is looking for," said Ben Schrag, the NSF program officer who oversees Ecovative's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award. "The traction that they have gotten with their early customers demonstrates how companies can build strong businesses around products whose primary competitive advantage lies in their sustainability."
In addition to the packaging product, called EcoCradle™, Ecovative has developed a home insulation product dubbed greensulate™. Comparable in effectiveness to foam insulation, it has the added benefit of being flame retardant.
Ecovative is already producing custom protective packaging products for several Fortune 500 companies, though they are leveraging the new disinfection process to produce turnkey systems that they plan to deploy to off-site customers and do-it-yourself homeowners by 2013.
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In addition to NSF, Evocative has received support from the USDA Agricultural Research Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.
Caption: EcoCradle packaging material is composed of agricultural byproducts (cotton gin trash) bound together by fungal mycelium. With an appearance and functionality of polymer foams, EcoCradle can be manufactured with just one eighth the energy and one tenth the carbon dioxide of traditional foam packing material. Credit: Edward Browka, Ecovative Design
Usage Restrictions: None
and you can make soup from the garbage!
Tried that with Styrofoam but it shriveled to nothing when heated.
Thought you may want to read this.
Thanks.
Ain’t got a problem with this kind of green capitalism.
Problem starts when the government bans styrofoam peanuts and starts requiring this. Then we find out that the shroom foam is a crappy product, overall costs more to manufacture, and since it’s required they can get away with charging twice as much.
Anything that improves my clay soil is a winner. And if it saves energy, that leaves more for me to run the AC supercool.
I wish I could put all of my trash into soil production. I don’t care about the CO2 reduction though since that is meaningless.
These greenies are everywhere as this eMail tag line depicts... >Think GREEN. Please consider the environment before printing this email.<
Of course they don’t figure in the cost to transport cotton waste from south Texas to New York.
"Much of the manufacturing process is nearly energy-free, with the mycelia growing around and digesting agricultural starter material--such as cotton seed or wood fiber--"
The article is very interesting and, as mentioned by a FReeper above, I don't mind 'green' technology that is driven by the free-market process ... but, I am having trouble reconciling the two statements that I've taken from the article. They say that this produce will not be prone to price fluctuations, yet they are relying on starter material that DOES fluctuate in price. Cotton seed goes up and down quite a bit, and I don't doubt that wood fiber does as well.
The waste stream may not be constant, either. There could be a glut or a shortage of the original material at any given time, reducing the amount of waste or increasing it. Changes in the original substances’ processing could also change the availability or usefulness of the waste.
But, it does look like they could easily switch to other cellulose-based waste streams.
If they could use tree bark, there is probably an infinite supply from the sawmills and logging waste. Corn cobs and peanut shells could likely be used, as well.
I hope their kits are cheap enough to be cost effective. I could use something like this in my business.
inedible agricultural waste and mushroom rootsCue Darby and Grace and the Great Society.
Most sawmills use their “waste”, or it is sold to manufacturers of things like OSB and particle board, or other composites. Plus with the housing crash, the sawmills aren’t producing as much these days.
Very interesting! Thanks for the ping! I loathe styro packing peanuts...but I love the ones made from cornstarch...you can compost them, too.
Build a better mouse trap...!
Locally, we have small Amish sawmills. They had contracts for years with the state to provide split logs for trails and black locust fence posts. About a year ago, Wisconsin closed a lot of the waysides and curtailed building and maintenance in the parks. Since the cheapest local firewood is slab, there was a lot of worry that the mills would close.
Instead, those capitalistic Amish went out and found other contracts and are still in business.
They burned their sawdust, much to the disgust of the local leftists, who fume about air pollution. Granted, I wouldn’t want to be downwind when they do this. I have heard that instead of burning it, they are selling it for wood pellets.
I was wondering about the bark. About all we do with it now, at the end of the heating season, is chip it for mulch. I just wondered if it could be used in this process. There has been kitty litter made from corn cobs (don’t know how good it is). Again, I wonder if cobs would work in this process.
I’ll have to do some looking, but it seems like any organic material should work for this process. But there may be substances that don’t turn out as aesthetically pleasing, appearance wise, as others. Don’t know how many cow pastures you’ve kicked through, but shrooms LOVE cow patties. So for potential customers, showing them a product that literally looks like crap might not sell well.
Well, morels love dead elms. And shitakes grow on logs, as do several other types.
I am intrigued that they are growing it in some sort of mold (no pun intended). Might end up being a new craft medium,
As for the cowpies, there is a molded manure product that is decorative. You set it out in the flower beds as an ornament and it fertilizes as it degrades.
What they need are human type molds. Grow a roomful of people. Mannequins, Oliver Stone movie casts, etc.
The sample in the picture looks pretty small. It doesn’t really say how long it takes to grow this stuff. Mushrooms grow fast, but does this?
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