Preparation and Properties of Fungal Mycelium Based on Garden Waste

Abstract

With the development of urban afforestation, the increasing of garden waste has become a seriously problem. There are a lot of limitations by the traditional approaches to garden waste utilization and therefore it’s urgent need to explore a new method for garden waste utilization. To solve the problem of using garden waste, we produce a new composite material called fungal mycelium materials at room temperature which based on garden waste and straw. And the composite material is comprised of a substrate of discrete particles and a network of interconnected mycelia cells bonding the discrete particles together. In order to obtain a shorter growth cycle and more excellent properties of fungal mycelium materials, we mixed garden waste and straw in different proportions with oyster mushroom No. 1. The experimental results show that the fungal mycelium materials with good properties by only garden waste. But the speed of fungal mycelia growth accelerated from 14 days to 12 days, the density of the fungal mycelium material reduced from 0.23 g/cm³ to 0.18g/cm³ and the mechanical properties of the fungal mycelium material improved through adding 20wt% straw into the garden waste. The fungal mycelium materials with good mechanical properties, low density, low moisture content and low thermal conductivity could be applied to thermal insulation, packaging and decoration.