Chips and Batteries made from Mushroom Skin

Researchers discover the potential of the tree mushroom Red Reishi (“Ganoderma lucidum”), commonly known as Ling Zhi in Chinese, is an herbal mushroom known for its miraculous health benefits. Until now, this mushroom was known mainly as a medicine. A coincidence now reveals its potential to build sustainable electronic components.

A research team from Linz, Austria, has used the skin of the pipe fungus, a common tree mushroom, Ganoderma lucidum, as a carrier substance for electronic components.

Scientists discovered that the dried skin of the tree fungus can easily be used as a flexible circuit board. This type of sustainable innovation, described in the journal Science Advances, is called “micelotronics,”

Electronic circuits: hardly recyclable and unsustainable production

In almost all computer chips, this substrate is made of non-recyclable plastic polymers that are often discarded at the end of a chip’s life. As New Scientist reports, this adds to the 50 million tons of e-waste that is produced each year.

Now this could change thanks to researchers at the Johannes Kepler University Linz, who discovered, by chance, that the glossy lake fungus forms a closed mycelial skin for protection

Thus, when they removed and dried the skin, they found that it is flexible, a good insulator, can withstand temperatures of over 200°C, and is about the thickness of a sheet of paper—good properties for a circuit substrate.

Durable and easy to recycle

It can also last for hundreds of years if kept away from moisture and ultraviolet light, according to the researchers. In the soil, on the other hand, the skin of the gloss varnish fungus decomposes within two weeks. A circuit board made of this material would therefore be very durable on the one hand and easily recyclable on the other.

The material is also attractive for the development of novel batteries, composed mainly of mycelium, that can wirelessly power electronic devices such as Bluetooth sensors. Scientists are already making first approximations. They then try to adapt the properties of the membrane formed from the skin of fungi to the respective application ideas.

Chips and Batteries made from Mushroom Skin

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