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• +8

  A comment on Conversation: How do you envision "Biomimicry" will change our future?

  Feb 15 2011: I firmly believe that nature represents the single biggest repository of "un-tapped" intellectual property in the known universe. It's only because we are so surrounded by life, things like grass, cows, cats, dogs, and trees that we somehow miss the wonder of these living machines. As I write this an amaryllis on my desk is slowly converting water, stored sugar, and ethereal photons into a brilliantly constructed colorful collector.
  
  One approach in bio-mimicry is to apply the amaryllises' flower synthesis principles to satellites, by studying how the leaves are folded within the pod, and then replicating this process using synthetic materials, cams, winches, and other mechanisms. This approach (with a particular emphasis on the science of folding) has been replicated with great success in creating efficient solar payloads.
  
  But even more powerful than biomimicry, is bio-adaption. Taking the whole of an existing living system and re-adopting it to a new purpose. In the satellite example with a "bio-adapted" design the solar sails would not just unfurl, but actually be built, molecule by molecule by the stem of the ship. Of course this is what we think of mechanistic nanotechnology. Scientists consider this "tough", but in fact its happening in the world around you, in your own body, all the time.
  
  At Ecovative we us the concept of bio-adaption with mycelium. We take a living organism, which demonstrates an incredibly complex metabolic process to convert waste lignin into a chitinous polymer, and use the entire body of the organism, as a glue! We arn't just mimicking what happens in nature, we are directly leveraging the billions of years of evolution, genome acquisition, and other processes which resulted in a finely tuned living polymer. There are many examples of living systems that do incredible things like this, its just a matter of changing your perspective on what life is. Its not "Magic" just sufficiently advanced technology. We should use it as such!
• +3

  A reply on Conversation: How do you envision "Biomimicry" will change our future?

  Feb 15 2011: Bill,
  
  The key in the adoption of green technologies is that they actually have to be BETTER than existing synthetics. This means in performance, and usually price. This is a tall order, but biological solutions, when properly designed, can and should be able to meet this metric. If they do, they become highly scale-able. We must demand environmentally responsible solutions that don't make compromises. Its hard, but worth it!
• +13

  A reply on Talk: Eben Bayer: Are mushrooms the new plastic?

  Oct 15 2010: Hi Chris!
  
  The the energy requirements are significantly less to heat and pasteurize the material when compared to making EPS or other foamed plastics. (1/5 to 1/10 depending on what metrics you use). We use LCA software to plan our manufacturing and production choices because its easy to create processes that appear green, but are not when you analyze the whole system. As an aside, we have funding from the National Science Foundation to do this process with no steam or heat. Continuous improvement is crucial!
  
  And you are right, we do assume that a global system of trade will exist in the future, but we purposely are designing for local manufacturing as global trade may not always be as feasible.
  
  Packaging is a first important step. Our vision is to grow many of the products we use today, not just the packaging. Packaging was the first product that we had a strong technical, economic, and environmental fit, which is why we launched in that market.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Eben Bayer: Are mushrooms the new plastic?

  Oct 8 2010: pkycrete! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete
  Very interesting material!
• +8

  A reply on Talk: Eben Bayer: Are mushrooms the new plastic?

  Oct 6 2010: Folks presented before and after me that session, I did not want to interrupt their performances. I did hand out samples to anyone who wanted one during the week. :) You can get your own at www.ecovativedesign.com. Cheers!
• +28

  A comment on Talk: Eben Bayer: Are mushrooms the new plastic?

  Oct 4 2010: Hi All. Thanks for the Feedback! I'm going to answer a few questions at once so here goes:
  1) In terms of cost, our target is to be cost neutral when compared to foams. For instance, the corners Steelcase are using are no more expensive than the foam they were using before. This isn't true for every product and every package type, but we are pretty close. Cost competitiveness is essential to have a big impact.
  2) The mycelium is totally dead at the end of our process, just benign chitin (like lobster shells). Drying the material inactivates the organism. So no invasive species issues.
  3) While our approach appears less sophisticated than plastics, living cells should be considered fantastic near nano-tech type assemblers. The mycelium we use in our process transforms ag-byproducts into a natural polymer, and it does it at room temperature & pressure & at any scale. The plastics industry requires supply chains that stretch around the world and giant facilities to perform the same feat