VolkswagenStiftung funds research on sustainable mushroom-based building materials

Through the funding initiative "Circularity with Recycled and Biogenic Materials", the Volkswagen Foundation supports applied research efforts focused on creating closed-loop raw material and product cycles. 83 applications for funding were received and nine projects have now been approved by the foundation. This includes a project at the University of Stuttgart: The ADMIRATION project (Accelerated Discovery of Living Fiber-reinforced Mineral Composite Materials for Circular Construction) focuses on biodegradable, bio-inspired building materials based on mushrooms.

“Conventional building materials such as cement or wood-polymer composites consume considerable resources and energy during production and produce non-recyclable waste at the end of their service life. So, they are far from being circular,” says Prof. Martin Ostermann from the Institute of Building Construction (IBK). "In the ADMIRATION project, we are exploring how straw – an abundant and rapidly renewable resource – can be transformed into a sustainable, circular building material."

In addition to Prof. Martin Ostermann, the ADMIRATION project team includes Dr. Achim Weber from the Institute of Interfacial Process Engineering and Plasma Technology and Prof. Wilfried Weber from the INM - Leibniz Institute for New Materials, Saarbrücken. The research takes place in the mycelium laboratory at the Future Material Lab (FuMaLab), a facility specifically established for scientific study.

“Biodegradable mycelium-based composites (MBCs) are already being used successfully in practice as a building material. However, the MBCs developed so far have lower strength and durability compared to cement-based building materials," says Ostermann. "What sets our approach apart is the use of synthetic biology and combinatorial processing methods, which modify the properties of mycelium-based materials to meet the requirements of various building material classes that were previously out of reach."