Shortage of cotton and environmental concerns of petroleum-based textiles have resulted in large demand for sustainable alternatives. At the same time food waste causes enormous economic and environmental loss. This research presents a novel approach for re-use of food waste through its bioconversion to textile materials. The filamentous fungus <i>Rhizopus delemar</i> was grown on food waste in an airlift bioreactor in a scalable submerged cultivation process. The mycelium’s cell wall, containing chitin and chitosan, was isolated from the harvested fungal biomass and subjected to a wet spinning process to align the fungal microfibers and develop monofilament yarns. From the mechanical strength perspective, the highest tensile strength and Young’s modulus was 118 MPa and 6.4 GPa, respectively. Treatment of the fibers with glycerol resulted in significant improvement in the fiber flexibility and resulted in the highest elongation at break of 15.8%. The monofilaments exhibited antibacterial properties and biocompatibility. Furthermore, the fungal microfibers were wet-laid to form biocompatible paper-like materials with tensile strengths of up to 71 MPa and Young’s modulus of up to 3.4 GPa. Additionally, a tanning process was performed on fungal microfibers, and leather-like materials were prepared through wet-laying and post-treatments. The fungal leather exhibited similar Young’s modulus vs. density behavior as natural leathers.

Sustainable fungal textiles and paper-like materials from food waste

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.