MYCOSITE MYCelium based compOSITE, towards a truly sustainable biomaterial

Research Project, 2023 – 2025

Agri-food waste of lignocellulosic origin, produced on the order of 14 Gt/year, is the most abundant renewable resource on Earth. However, it is considered a major environmental pollutant and a loss of potential energy and material. For this reason, interest in the biorefinery has been growing in recent decades, and we can use this waste biomass to produce energy, materials, and chemicals. Still, current inefficient use of lignocellulosic biomass creates waste, low-value side streams, and recalcitrant residues, reducing the sustainability of the system. The project promotes a new integrated biorefinery approach by using advanced fungal biotechnology to upcycle abundant underutilized lignocellulose biomass to generate innovative biobased materials capturing CO2 during the fungal growth. Basidiomycota fungi, the most efficient natural degraders of biomass, will be used and their fungal mycelia will directly convert lignocellulose substrates to new biocomposite materials, bringing strength and cohesion to the agri-food particles by producing microscopic filaments that form the mycelium, generating a mycelium-based composite. That requires low energy consumption, and the resulting materials are biodegradable, cost-effective supporting transition towards a circular economy.