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 legallyhomeless
mooch
Registered: 07/01/05
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 Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms
#7940459 - 01/27/08 02:07 PM (6 months, 28 days ago) |
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Maybe the Hobbits and those little creatures from the fairy tales were on to something. Mushrooms may just be the thing when it comes to insulating your home or building.
Researchers are using mushrooms as a key ingredient in “Greensulate,” an environmentally-friendly, renewal form of insulation. Here’s the recipe for the insulating boards that are fire resistant and organic: water, flour, oyster mushroom spores and perlite, a mineral that is often found in potting soil.
You won’t find “Greensulate” at a building supplies store near for at least another year. More work needs to be done to make the concept commercially viable. But a team of researchers is confident that they’re on to a good, green idea.
So far, the two 20-something developers, college graduates just this spring, have been growing the concoctions under their beds. But they’ve applied for grant money from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance.
So far, so good with the testing results. A one-inch thick piece of “Greensulate” had a 2.9 R-value, the scale used for rating insulation. Most current commercially produced fiberglass insulation has an R-value of between 2.7 and 3.7.
The beauty of “Greensulate” is that it doesn’t take a lot of energy or toxic materials to produce. Here's how it works: A mixture of water, mineral particles, starch and hydrogen peroxide are poured into 7-by-7-inch molds and then injected with living mushroom cells. The hydrogen peroxide is used to prevent the growth of other specimens within the material.
Placed in a dark environment, the cells start to grow, digesting the starch as food and sprouting thousands of root-like cellular strands. A within two weeks, a 1-inch-thick panel of insulation is fully grown. It's then dried to prevent fungal growth, making it unlikely to trigger mold and fungus allergies. The finished product resembles a giant cracker in texture.
The inventors also envision using the process to create building walls, like sheetrock, that could be installed and provide good insulating properties.
There’s no word, yet, if people living and working inside those walls will feel especially happy or have the munchies!
Source
More Info
This stuff is great I think. I was going to try to make a sample to test out. They just use perlite soaked in a food source for the oyster myc. They make a LC then pour it into the sterilized perlite mix. Once the myc has consumed all of the perlite they dry it out and cut it.
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Edited by legallyhomeless (01/28/08 01:14 PM)
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playwithguns
Sporophore
Registered: 10/20/04
Posts: 219
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: legallyhomeless]
#7940904 - 01/27/08 03:32 PM (6 months, 28 days ago) |
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What happens if it gets wet though? Otherwise sounds like a great idea. That would be sweet if you could buy a 4x8 sheet of it at Home Depot, take it home, rehydrate it, and fruit out some nice oysters. 
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 RogerRabbit
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: playwithguns]
#7941196 - 01/27/08 04:29 PM (6 months, 28 days ago) |
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Perhaps these college students haven't made to biology class yet, where they'll learn that biological life forms degrade over time, literally returning to dust.
RR
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playwithguns
Sporophore
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: RogerRabbit]
#7941384 - 01/27/08 05:10 PM (6 months, 28 days ago) |
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Maybe they involve a preservative in the process?
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legallyhomeless
mooch
Registered: 07/01/05
Posts: 2,068
Loc: UMA for the Refuge
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: playwithguns]
#7941544 - 01/27/08 05:38 PM (6 months, 28 days ago) |
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The article doesnt explain it like they did while making it. Also, the material was heat resiatant up to 200 some degrees.
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fastfred
Registered: 05/17/04
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: legallyhomeless]
#7942645 - 01/27/08 08:55 PM (6 months, 28 days ago) |
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> The finished product resembles a giant cracker in texture.
And will probably last only slightly longer.
Building materials need to be durable and oyster myc isn't going to last very long. Even a little moisture from the air and you'll probably get trich and other fungi growing on it. Mice, other rodents, and insects will start eating it also.
-FF
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legallyhomeless
mooch
Registered: 07/01/05
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Loc: UMA for the Refuge
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: fastfred]
#7942671 - 01/27/08 08:58 PM (6 months, 28 days ago) |
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Obviously they know all of this and are most likly comming up with ways to do it properly. They are getting huge funding after all
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falcon
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: legallyhomeless]
#7943016 - 01/27/08 09:58 PM (6 months, 28 days ago) |
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Cool idea, they could insulate Baby-Hitler's Smurf house.
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fastfred
Registered: 05/17/04
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: falcon]
#7943261 - 01/27/08 11:09 PM (6 months, 27 days ago) |
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> They are getting huge funding after all.
Where are you getting this from? All it says is that they've applied for money. Likely they won't get it since they are already planning to try to commercialize the product.
Looking at the picture, this just isn't going to fly. You might as well try using spent PF cakes to insulate your house, this is basically the same thing.
I congratulate them on their research into the r-value of spent substrate, but otherwise this idea just isn't competitive with any type of commercial insulation. It will cost more, be less durable, and harder to work with.
-FF
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legallyhomeless
mooch
Registered: 07/01/05
Posts: 2,068
Loc: UMA for the Refuge
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: fastfred]
#7943280 - 01/27/08 11:12 PM (6 months, 27 days ago) |
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I wish I could find a video to post about it. It was on invention nation.
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DontPlay
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: legallyhomeless]
#7944169 - 01/28/08 07:37 AM (6 months, 27 days ago) |
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Yeah idk if they make it exactly like they say then it will fail. Due to all the things mentioned above.They would have to do alot more to prevent those problems.
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YidakiMan
Registered: 09/28/02
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: DontPlay]
#7944316 - 01/28/08 08:59 AM (6 months, 27 days ago) |
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When building or remodelings it is hard to beat spray-in expanding foam insulation.
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RogerRabbit
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: YidakiMan]
#7944374 - 01/28/08 09:21 AM (6 months, 27 days ago) |
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Another problem. Oyster mycelium can dry completely, totally out. . .and then recover when the rains come. Those of us who live in the PNW see this every year with Oysters on downed Alder trees. It often doesn't rain from May until October, and the tree branches are cracker dry and snap when you step on them. However, come the rainy season, these same branches spring to life with oyster mushrooms. If it's used as insulation in a wood structure, and you get a leak(which always happens), the mycelium eats your house, ruining the structure.
RR
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Culland
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: RogerRabbit]
#7944568 - 01/28/08 10:14 AM (6 months, 27 days ago) |
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I sent them an email yesterday after this thread was first posted,
thought I would share the results. I asked them what if it gets wet, what is its lifespan, and lastly what about insects. Here is the reply:
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Thank you for your interest in Greensulate and we will be developing a FAQ on the website in the near future. As you are well aware Greensulate is biodegradable, thus water absorption within the home is an important consideration since the material should degrade in a controlled environment rather than in a wall. To prevent any supersaturation, premature biodegrading, and mold growth an organic sealant is implement, which reaches an inch depth into the material to account for nailing. This allows the Greensulate composite to meet ASTM and International Building Code compliance, in external applications. The primary applications for Greensulate however are internal, including partitions and doorcores, these allow for more of a controlled environment. The estimated lifespan of the Greensulate is a minimum of 30 yrs, but will last the length of the structure, to remove Greensulate the material must be ground to allow biodegradability.
Insects are not a concern for Greensulate, the strain of fungi that we use as the organic resign has a natural resistance to insects. Additionally, the composite is predominately mineral and a natural derivative of silica, thus the fungi (resign) content constitutes a mere 10% of the material. I hope this addresses your questions, and I appreciate your interest.
Gavin McIntyre
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Their website is: http://www.ecovativedesign.com
Cul
Edited by Culland (01/28/08 10:17 AM)
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legallyhomeless
mooch
Registered: 07/01/05
Posts: 2,068
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: Culland]
#7945246 - 01/28/08 01:01 PM (6 months, 27 days ago) |
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Nice Culland.
They are also making an organic styrofoam. This product because styrofoam takes up more then 50% by volume in landfills.
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fastfred
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: legallyhomeless]
#7951467 - 01/29/08 05:13 PM (6 months, 26 days ago) |
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So you have to coat this material with an organic sealant like polyurethane. That's going to add a lot to the cost of installing the material and will be a messy, labor intensive job. It also makes the whole "environmentally friendly" scheme of this material pretty questionable.
Natural styrofoam sounds like a lot better idea. But they already have that. It's sold as those starch-based packing peanuts that dissolve in water and can be fed to livestock.
-FF
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makaveli8x8
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: fastfred]
#7953173 - 01/29/08 09:53 PM (6 months, 26 days ago) |
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I remember back in 4th grade we made salt/flour maps....sounds like they build a wall instead of a country 
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Baby_Hitler
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: falcon]
#7953344 - 01/29/08 10:18 PM (6 months, 25 days ago) |
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If I had a live oyster culture, I would try make some of this stuff. It's interesting that they've gone with oyster mushrooms. I was thinking the same thing, but I bet a reishi board would be stronger.
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RogerRabbit
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: Baby_Hitler]
#7953425 - 01/29/08 10:28 PM (6 months, 25 days ago) |
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Actually, since it was under the bed of their dorm room, I suspect it wasn't oyster either. 
RR
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www.mushroomvideos.com
"I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member".
Mark Twain, Woody Allen, Groucho Marx, and anyone else who wishes to claim credit for the quote.
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legallyhomeless
mooch
Registered: 07/01/05
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Re: Greensulate Insulation from Mushrooms [Re: RogerRabbit]
#7953478 - 01/29/08 10:35 PM (6 months, 25 days ago) |
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Thats what I keep under my dorm bed 
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B+ Grow Log
Manure: A Start to Finish Guide
My Favorite Read
If you have a Lipa Yai, Pink Buffalo, Golden Teacher, Malabar, Vietnamese, or Colorado print and want to trade, PM me.
For Sale: Flowhood blowers.
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