Fungal textiles: Wet spinning of fungal microfibers to produce monofilament yarnsShow others and affiliations
2021 (English)In: Sustainable Materials and Technologies, ISSN 2214-9937, Vol. 28, article id e00256Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Sustainable development
According to the author(s), the content of this publication falls within the area of sustainable development.
Abstract [en]
The cell wall of a zygomycetes fungus was successfully wet spun into monofilament yarns and demonstrated as a novel resource for production of sustainable textiles. Furthermore, the fungus could be cultivated on bread waste, an abundant food waste with large negative environmental impact if not further utilized. Rhizopus delemar was first cultivated in bread waste in a bubble column bioreactor. The fungal cell wall collected through alkali treatment of fungal biomass contained 36 and 23% glucosamine and N-acetyl glucosamine representing chitosan and chitin in the cell wall, respectively. The amino groups of chitosan were protonated by utilizing acetic or lactic acid. This resulted in the formation of a uniform hydrogel of fungal microfibers. The obtained hydrogel was wet spun into an ethanol coagulation bath to form an aggregated monofilament, which was finally dried. SEM images confirmed the alignment of fungal microfibers along the monofilament axis. The wet spun monofilaments had tensile strengths up to 69.5 MPa and Young's modulus of 4.97 GPa. This work demonstrates an environmentally benign procedure to fabricate renewable fibers from fungal cell wall cultivated on abundant food waste, which opens a window to creation of sustainable fungal textiles.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2021. Vol. 28, article id e00256
Keywords [en]
Chitin, Chitosan, Filamentous fungi, Zygomycetes, Wet spinning, Monofilaments
National Category
Industrial Biotechnology
Research subject
Resource Recovery
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hb:diva-25100DOI: 10.1016/j.susmat.2021.e00256ISI: 000663234300010Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85100376426OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hb-25100DiVA, id: diva2:1532231
Funder
Vinnova, 2018-040932021-03-012021-03-012022-04-29Bibliographically approved