Tech Week 3/8/11

The company Ecovative Design began in Green Island, NY and is now collaborating with Ford Motor Company to begin the production of fungus based car parts. Ecovative Design is going to start off by building biodegradable fungus based bumpers, side doors, and dashboards. Mycelium, the strong root system of mushrooms, is a natural binding agent that can be used to knit together agricultural byproducts, including corn and oak husks. The husks and the Mycelium are combined in trays and left in a darkened warehouse long enough for them to be binded together. The trays spend five days there until they are cooked and dried. The result? a waterproof, fireproof, foam solid that decomposes one month after being buried in soil. The company wants to prove to Styrofoam manufactures that the fungus mixture can be a replacement for Styrofoam in the production of table and cabinet cores, surfboards and even wind turbine blades. The company is also trying to use different odd materials in their concoction including from Ecovative's mycelium to cooked chicken feathers, algae and wheat straw.