Mycelium Fibre Composite

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What is the goal of the experiment ?

Our main aim is to achieve a stronger and longer-lasting material. That is hard to break, a little flexible and overall more durable. We want to get some kind of structure into the filling material, to give the mycelium a better foundation to grow on.

How do we want to achive that ?

The idea is to make it, as written in the title, a fibre composite. We want to add layers of flax fibre fabric, in between the filling material. As the filling material only consists of small shredded hemp fibre, the mycelium has to connect them all. Adding the fabric in between will give it some kind of connection that supports the structure when the mycelium is fully grown.

We will vary between heavy and light fabric and experiment with a different number of layers.

What do you need to do that ?

Tools                                             Materials

-Ethanol                                      -Flour

-Foil                                             - 3L GIY Hemp Kit from grown.bio

-Bags                                           -different flax fibre fabric

-Scissors

-Mold/box

-Gloves

-Oven

Basic recipe

Prepare the material

1 - Clean all tools and surfaces with ethanol.

2 - Cut fabric in the right shape to fit in the mold and sterelize it with heat

3 - Using gloves: Add material to bowl and add flour (30g per kg).

4 - Breakup material and thoroughly mix in the flour. Make sure you     crumble all lumps.

Growing process

1 - Put the filling material with as many layers of the fabric in between in the mold and make it even.

2 - Wrap the mold with the filling in foil and seal it with tape.

3 - Poke holes every 3 cm with a small tool into each bag.

4 - Grow 4-5 days or until parts are uniformly white. Preferable a dark spot between 21-24 °C.

5 - After 4-5 days take it out of the mold and let it grow for another 1-2 days in the bag.

Final Step

1 - The parts should be saturated with white mycelium.

2 - Remove the parts from the bag environment.

3 - Place the product in the oven at 70°C for 2-3 hours until it is dried. You can do this in your oven at home, do not use the grill function.

Brick 1

For brick number 1 we only used the common mycelium, without any lines of fabric or shaper mix. It didn't do well in the bending and breaking test. It actually was the second-worst brick, it only took 2063g to break it into two clean pieces and didn't really bend at all.

Brick 2

For brick number 2 we used the mycelium with the shaper mix. It did quite well in the bending and breaking test. It took 4420g to break it, but it wasn't very flexible and broke down into two clean pieces just like brick number 1.

Brick 3

For brick number 3 we combined the mycelium with two layers of the havy fabric. In the bending and breaking test it took 3497g to break a part of it off, just enough to bend it nearly 90 degrees so the string slipped of. It was very flexible and is still in one piece.

Brick 4

Brick number 4 consists of mycelium with two layers of the lighter fabric. To our surprise, it only took 1978g to break the upper part of the mycelium, which led to heavy bending of the reinforced part of the brick so the string attached to the weight slipped off. We suspect the bad result, was due to us putting the fabric layers too far in the middle of the brick.

Brick 5

Brick number 5 consists of two layers of the lighter fabric, which were placed at the top and bottom of the brick. It did very well in the bending and breaking test, as it took 6499g to break it. It only broke because the upper part of the fabric ripped of the brick and lead it to bend down. The lower part of the fabric kept the brick in one piece though.

Brick 6

Brick number 6 consists of two layers of heavy fabric, which were placed at the top and bottom of the brick. It didn't do as good as Nr. 5 but with 4300g in the bending and breaking test, it did quite well. It only broke because the upper part of the fabric ripped of the brick and lead it to bend down. The lower part of the fabric kept the brick in one piece though.

Brick 7

Brick number 7 is made of mycelium with four layers of light fabric. It did well in the bending and breaking test, as it took 4927g to break the upper part. Due to the number of layers in the brick it wasn't as flexible as the other ones, but still more than the bricks without any fabric.

Brick 8

Brick number 8 is made of mycelium with four layers of heavy fabric. It didn't do as good as number 7 with only 3440g. It was just too flexible and the fabric just didn't grow together strong enough with the mycelium.

Brick 9

Brick number 9 consists of mycelium with a shaper mix and three layers of the light fabric were on the bottom, top and middle of the brick. It was by far the best test as it took up to 10290g, then unfortunately our string tore, and we couldn't attach another one to the brick as it always slipped off. We are quite sure it would have taken at least 12kg to break it.

Conclusion

With this experiment, we definitely proved our point. A combination of fibre and mycelium makes it more flexible and durable. The best combination by far was brick number 9 and we figured out that the lighter fabric works better with the mycelium as it grows stronger together. The sculpting mix also got a big impact, as it just makes the whole structure stronger. Important to mention is that the fabric, when placed at the bottom of the mold, grew together way better, so the next step should be to make a mold out of two pieces that cover the top and bottom of the brick. This should make it stronger as well.

Overall we are happy to say that we improved the mycelium structure and gave it the ability to be used in more ways than before.