Robust myco-composites: a biocomposite platform for versatile hybrid-living materials.

Fungal mycelium, a living network of filamentous threads, thrives on lignocellulosic waste and exhibits rapid growth, hydrophobicity, and intrinsic regeneration, offering a potential means to create next-generation sustainable and functional composites. However, existing hybrid-living mycelium composites (myco-composites) are tremendously constrained by conventional mold-based manufacturing processes, which are only compatible with simple geometries and coarse biomass substrates that enable gas exchange. Here we introduce a class of structural myco-composites manufactured with a novel platform that harnesses high-resolution biocomposite additive manufacturing and robust mycelium colonization with indirect inoculation.

An automated biomateriomics platform for sustainable programmable materials discovery.

Recently, the potential to create functional materials from various forms of organic matter has received increased interest due to its potential to address environmental concerns. However, the process of creating novel materials from biomass requires extensive experimentation. A promising means of predicting the properties of such materials would be the use of machine-learning models trained on or integrated into self-learned experimental data and methods.

Computational Design and Manufacturing of Sustainable Materials through First-Principles and Materiomics.

Engineered materials are ubiquitous throughout society and are critical to the development of modern technology, yet many current material systems are inexorably tied to widespread deterioration of ecological processes. Next-generation material systems can address goals of environmental sustainability by providing alternatives to fossil fuel-based materials and by reducing destructive extraction processes, energy costs, and accumulation of solid waste. However, development of sustainable materials faces several key challenges including investigation, processing, and architecting of new feedstocks that are often relatively mechanically weak, complex, and difficult to characterize or standardize.