From risottos to sauces, mushrooms have lengthy been a staple within the kitchen. Now fungi are exhibiting the potential to serve up extra than simply taste—as a sustainable, flexible materials for the style trade.
Researchers are utilizing the web-like construction of the mushroom’s root system—the mycelium—as a substitute for artificial fibers for clothes and different merchandise equivalent to automobile seats.
“It is undoubtedly a change of mindset within the manufacturing course of,” mentioned Annalisa Moro, EU venture chief at Italy-based Mogu, which makes interior-design merchandise from the mycelium. “You are actually collaborating with nature to develop one thing moderately than create it, so it is type of futuristic.”
Mogu, situated 50 kilometers northwest of Milan, is managing a analysis initiative to develop nonwoven materials fabricated from mycelium fibers for the textile trade.
Referred to as MY-FI, the venture runs for 4 years by way of October 2024 and brings collectively firms, analysis institutes, trade organizations and tutorial establishments from throughout Europe.
MY-FI highlights how the EU is pushing for extra sustainable manufacturing and consumption within the textile and attire trade, which employs round 1.3 million individuals in Europe and has annual turnover of €167 billion.
Whereas getting most of its textiles from overseas, the EU produces them in nations together with France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Italy accounts for greater than 40% of EU attire manufacturing.
Delicate and sturdy
The mycelium grows from starter spawn added to crops equivalent to cereals. The threadlike filaments of the hyphae, the vegetative a part of the fungus, create a fabric that grows on high. It’s harvested and dried, leading to smooth, silky white sheets of nonwoven cloth which might be 50 to 60 sq. centimeters.
The fragile materials is made stronger and extra sturdy by way of the addition of bio-based chemical compounds that bind the fibers collectively.
Its ecological origins distinction with these of most artificial fibers equivalent to nylon and polyester, which derive from fossil fuels equivalent to coal and oil.
Meaning manufacturing of artificial fibers provides to greenhouse-gas emissions which might be accelerating local weather change. As well as, when washed, these supplies shed microplastics that always find yourself polluting the setting together with rivers, seas and oceans.
The MY-FI mycelium wants little or no soil, water or chemical compounds, giving it greener credentials than even pure fibers equivalent to cotton.
Costume rehearsal
For the style trade, the smooth, water resistant properties of the mycelium are as interesting as its environmental credentials.
Simply ask Mariagrazia Sanua, sustainability and certification supervisor at Dyloan Bond Manufacturing facility, an Italian dressmaker and producer that’s a part of MY-FI.
The corporate has used the mycelium-based materials—in black and brown and with a waxed end—to supply a prototype costume, a top-and-midi-skirt mixture, baggage and small leather-based equipment.
Laser chopping and display screen printing have been used to judge the fabric’s habits. The problem was to adapt to the sheets of material—squares of the mycelium materials moderately than conventional rolls of textiles like cotton, linen and polyester—in addition to properties equivalent to tensile energy and seam tightness.
“Now we have needed to utterly change the paradigm and design processes and clothes based mostly on the fabric,” mentioned Sanua.
The corporate hopes the mycelium materials might be a method of providing customers a variety of merchandise that may be options to animal leather-based.
“It is stunning to see the prototypes,” mentioned Moro. “It is a fantastic factor to see how many individuals with completely different backgrounds and views are working collectively to create this end result.”
For its half, Mogo is working in direction of a large-scale manufacturing plant to maneuver the MY-FI materials from the analysis stage to the market. Whereas the fabric is presently comparatively costly to make, prices would fall with large-scale manufacturing.
Leather-based-unbound
In the meantime, Germany-based Volkswagen, the world’s No. 2 automobile producer, is seeking to mycelium applied sciences to scale back its environmental footprint and transfer away from leather-based for car interiors.
Prospects more and more need animal-free supplies for interiors from seat covers and door panels to dashboards and steering wheels, so including a sustainable substitute for leather-based is an thrilling prospect, based on Dr. Martina Gottschling, a researcher at Volkswagen Group Innovation.
“A quick-growing organic materials that may be produced animal-free and with little effort, which additionally doesn’t require petroleum-based sources, is a game-changer in inside supplies,” she mentioned.
The mycelium materials can also be lighter than leather-based, one other optimistic for lowering VW’s carbon footprint.
The corporate’s involvement in MY-FI is driving venture researchers at Utrecht College within the Netherlands and I-TECH Lyon in France to boost the sturdiness of the mycelium cloth. To maneuver from prototype to manufacturing line, the material should meet high quality necessities set by VW to make sure the fabric lasts for the lifetime of the car.
It is a problem that Gottschling believes might be met within the coming decade.
“We already see the fabric as one of many high-quality supplies for inside functions that might be doable sooner or later,” she mentioned.
When life provides you tomatoes
Mushrooms aren’t the one meals with the potential to spin a sustainable-yarn revolution. Tomato stems have a hidden expertise too, based on Dr. Ozgur Atalay and Dr. Alper Gurarslan of Istanbul Technical College in Turkey.
Seeing tomato vines left to wither within the fields after the crop was harvested, Atalay and Gurarslan started to research whether or not the stems might be reworked into sustainable fibers.
Assessments proved that the agricultural waste might certainly be became yarn. However Atalay and Gurarslan have been decided to go a step additional. They wished to make use of tomato stems to create a kind of yarn for clothes that monitor coronary heart beats, respiratory charges and joint actions.
The 2 researchers lead a venture to create this sort of electrically conductive attire utilizing—for the primary time—sustainable supplies. Referred to as SMARTWASTE, the venture runs for 4 years till the tip of 2026 and likewise includes tutorial and analysis organizations from Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland.
“The great thing about the venture is that we’re ranging from waste,” mentioned Atalay. “We’re taking agricultural waste and never simply creating common textiles however one thing rather more worthwhile.”
Whereas value estimates will observe later within the venture when design companions work on creating precise merchandise, he signaled that good clothes might be an excellent deal dearer than the extraordinary sort.
A sensible textile shirt might value as a lot as €1,000, based on Atalay.
The specialised materials, restricted manufacturing runs and analysis and growth wanted to create wearable applied sciences which might be sturdy, washable and comfy all contribute to the value tag.
Developments in expertise ought to ultimately result in decrease manufacturing prices and shopper costs.
Seeds of poplar success
The Turkish countryside has additionally impressed a second strand to the venture. Turkey’s considerable poplar timber and—extra particularly—their white, fluffy cotton-like seeds prompted Gurarslan to research whether or not they might be a sustainable textile supply.
Whereas their fibers have been dismissed as too quick to make a yarn, the seeds have three explicit properties that attraction to the textile trade: a hole, pipe-like construction that may lure warmth to offer thermal qualities, an antibacterial nature and water resistance.
The community of SMARTWASTE consultants has blended the seeds with recycled polyester to make a nonwoven cloth that the group intends to show into textile merchandise with enhanced thermal properties.
The researchers hope that is simply the beginning of a far-reaching transformation of textiles.
“Our objective is to coach the subsequent technology of researchers and innovators in sustainable textiles,” mentioned Atalay.
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Horizon: The EU Analysis & Innovation Journal
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Researchers flip to 2 crops to deal with environmental hurt of attire made with artificial fibers (2024, Might 1)
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