Growing new types of building materials: mycelium-based composite materials

Abstract

Abstract In the coming decades, the use of finite and ever-scarcer primary materials will become more and more difficult, and especially more expensive. In the EU Taxonomy, the European Union stipulates that, in order to benefit from public funding, buildings must reduce their primary-materials footprint by 50 % by the year 2030 and even by 75 % by the year 2050. The intention is to replace these sources of primary raw materials with so-called secondary materials, especially with renewable raw materials. However, because land within the EU is already being used very intensively for forestry and food production, increasing scrutiny is falling on other fields involving production independent of location using organic waste materials and fungi to grow new types of building materials. This type of growth requires few resources and can take place without use of land in existing, repurposed facilities of all kinds, such as old industrial buildings or infrastructure facilities like mining shafts.