Extrusion-based additive manufacturing of fungal-based composite materials using the tinder fungus Fomes fomentarius

Fungal Biology and Biotechnology

Maged F. Bekheet¹  Amanmyrat Abdullayev¹  Huaiyou Chen¹  Aleksander Gurlo¹  Ulla Simon¹  Mathias Czasny¹  Vera Meyer²  Isabel Regler²  Bertram Schmidt²  Carsten Pohl²  Cekdar Vakifahmetoglu³  Paul H. Kamm⁴ 

[1] Chair of Advanced Ceramic Materials, Institute of Material Science and Technology, Faculty III Process Sciences, Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623, Berlin, Germany;Chair of Applied and Molecular Microbiology, Institute of Biotechnology, Faculty III Process Sciences, Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623, Berlin, Germany;Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Izmir Institute of Technology, 35430, Urla, Izmir, Turkey;Institute of Applied Materials, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie, Hahn-Meitner-Platz 1, 14109, Berlin, Germany;

关键词: Fungi;    Mycelium;    Additive manufacturing;    Extrusion;    Alginate;    Freeze-drying;    Micro-computed tomography;    Tinder fungus;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s40694-021-00129-0

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundRecent efforts in fungal biotechnology aim to develop new concepts and technologies that convert renewable plant biomass into innovative biomaterials. Hereby, plant substrates become metabolized by filamentous fungi to transform them into new fungal-based materials. Current research is thus focused on both understanding and optimizing the biology and genetics underlying filamentous fungal growth and on the development of new technologies to produce customized fungal-based materials.ResultsThis manuscript reports the production of stable pastes, composed of Fomes fomentarius mycelium, alginate and water with 71 wt.% mycelium in the solid content, for additive manufacturing of fungal-based composite materials. After printing complex shapes, such as hollow stars with up to 39 mm in height, a combination of freeze-drying and calcium-crosslinking processes allowed the printed shapes to remain stable even in the presence of water. The printed objects show low bulk densities of 0.12 ± 0.01 g/cm3 with interconnected macropores.ConclusionsThis work reports for the first time the application of mycelium obtained from the tinder fungus F. fomentarius for an extrusion-based additive manufacturing approach to fabricate customized light-weight 3D objects. The process holds great promise for developing light-weight, stable, and porous fungal-based materials that could replace expanded polystyrene produced from fossil resources.

【 授权许可】

CC BY