Fungal textile alternatives from bread waste with leather-like propertiesShow others and affiliations
2021 (English)In: Resources, Conservation and Recycling, ISSN 0921-3449, E-ISSN 1879-0658, article id 106041Article 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]
Food waste and fashion pollution are two of the most prominent global environmental issues. To alleviate the problems associated with food waste, while simultaneously contributing to sustainable fashion, the feasibility of making an alternative textile material with leather-like properties from fungal biomass cultivated on bread waste was investigated. The filamentous fungus, Rhizopus delemar, was successfully grown on waste bread in a submerged cultivation process, and fungal biomass was treated with vegetable tannin of chestnut wood. NMR and FTIR confirmed interactions between tannin and fungal biomass, while OM, SEM and AFM visualised the changes in the hyphae upon the tannin treatment. Thermal stability was assessed using TGA analysis. The wet-laid technique commonly utilised for paper-making was used to prepare sheets of hyphae. Some of the sheets were treated with glycerol and/or a biobased binder as post-treatment. Overall, three of the produced materials exhibited leather-like properties comparable to that of natural leather. Sheets from untreated biomass with only glycerol post-treatment showed a tensile strength of 7.7 MPa and an elongation at break of 5%. Whereas sheets from untreated biomass and tannin treated biomass with both glycerol and binder treatments led to tensile strengths of 7.1 MPa and 6.9 MPa, and the elongation at break of 12% and 17%, respectively. The enhancement of hydrophobicity after the binder treatment, helped to preserve the absorbed glycerol within the sheet and thereby the flexibility was retained when in contact with moisture. These findings demonstrate that bread waste-derived fungal sheets have great potential as environmentally friendly materials with leather-like properties.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier, 2021. article id 106041
Keywords [en]
Fungal textiles, Food waste recovery, Filamentous fungi, Tanning, NMR, AFM, TGA
National Category
Polymer Chemistry Industrial Biotechnology
Research subject
Resource Recovery
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hb:diva-26958DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.106041ISI: 000774321500008Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85119499642OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hb-26958DiVA, id: diva2:1615749
Funder
Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, Bio4EnergyVinnova, 2018–04093European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), TK1342021-11-302021-11-302022-09-14Bibliographically approved