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Treated gypsum waste sits ready for use in industrial fillers and foams.Image Credits:Mycocycle
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unremarkably , when something commence to waste , it gets pitched in the trash . But Joanne Rodriguez desire to move around the conception of decomposition on its head by growing fungus on glass to move around it into something just .
“ We train mushroom to corrode methamphetamine and make renewable , bio - based raw cloth , ” she told TechCrunch .
Rodriguez is the founder and CEO ofMycocycle , one of a fresh crop of startups using fungi , nature ’s recyclers , to create plastic - like polymers for a post - fossil fuel economy . Today , about all plastic are made from crude and gas , and they are responsible for for about3.4 % of all glasshouse gas emissions , agree to the OECD .
“ We desire to be able to compete with the 3Ms and BASFs and Dows of the world , ” Rodriguez said .
That ’s no modest goal . Plastics are on the face of it everywhere , from food packaging to building material . Thanks to that ubiquity , theglobal plastics manufacture is worth $ 624 billion , agree to Grand View Research .
Mycocycle hopes not only to capture a share of that mart , but also interject its visual modality of disk shape by using its fungi to literally consume the plastics its competition produces .
The company has turned to a group of fungi known as white - bunkum mushroom-shaped cloud . In nature , fungi tend to fly high on things like dead leaves and woodwind , but Mycocycle ’s mushrooms have been chosen for their power to break down stuff produced using oil colour and throttle . The startup uses natural choice to get hold those best set for the business , choosing not to genetically modify the strains . “ I drew that line pretty early on , ” Rodriguez say .
When the kingdom Fungi get to work , they disintegrate the wasteland constitutional matter by suffusing it with their root - same hyphae . Though the hypha appear similar to the roots of flora , they are n’t made of cellulose like a plant life ’s fibers . alternatively , they ’re made of chitin , the same stuff that insects use to establish their exoskeletons . As those hyphae come into contact with carbon - base molecules , they break them down , using the food for thought source to grow and extend their reach .
Rodriguez said that Mycocycle ’s fungus can work on a panoptic range of waste , include paper , rubber and nylon . In a recent commercial-grade demonstration , the startup grew its fungi on scrap drywall leftover from the construction of a Meta information center . The startup delivered one of its bio - processor to a nearby dumpster company , which vanquish the drywall and plunge it into the mainframe along with the fungus from Mycocycle . The bio - processor then maintained the fungi ’s optimal temperature , between 60 and 80 degrees F , for about two weeks .
Once a cycle is complete , Mycocycle kills the fungus kingdom to ensure they do n’t keep growing . “ We do n’t need to put mold back into our building , ” Rodriguez said . The end result is a production that can be sold , rather than waste that costs money to dispose of .
The ensue material can be used in a mountain range of products , include insularity , acoustical panels for sound control , and makeweight to bulk up thing like concrete . ( The recycled material from the Meta undertaking will in all probability become filler since fungi only consume the newspaper that cover the wallboard , not the gypsum it encases . ) The fungi do n’t consume all the rubber , but rather encases it in a entanglement of mycelium , all of which Rodriguez said Mycocycle can process once more when it reaches the end of its life-time .
Mycoycle , which Rodriguez found in 2018 , is currently working to refine its process for reuse so-and-so prophylactic , the barren produced from old tires . It ’s a monolithic potential market , with the U.S. producing about280 millionevery twelvemonth .
To continue its R&D and commercialization efforts , the company raised a $ 3.6 million seed extension , the company told TechCrunch exclusively . The round was led by Closed Loop Partners and included investments from the Illinois Invent Fund , the Telus Pollinator Fund for Good and U.S. Venture .
Mycocycle will make for in over $ 1 million in revenue this yr , Rodriguez say . “ We ’ll be margin confirming . ” The crumb rubber eraser processing part of the business is perhaps the most promising , she added .
“ One of the strategic investors in this circle is looking specifically at this rubber grocery store at scale for the exact reason that we ’ve recycle tyre the same way for 40 year , ” she say . “ They see the risk , and they see the opportunity . ”
