Development and characterization of mycelium bio-composites by utilization of different agricultural residual byproducts

Mycelium bio-composites was developed by incubating Pleurotus ostreatus fungi on different substrates from agricultural residual byproducts, including rice straw, bagasse, coir-pith, sawdust, and corn straw. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) results showed that the hypha of composite derived from bagasse was the densest, and the diameter of hypha was the biggest (0.77 µm), which was presumably due to the existence of cellulose in bagasse in the form of dextran and xylan. The maximum and minimum compression strength for sawdust substrate and corn straw substrate were 456.70 and 270.31 kPa, respectively. The flexural strength for bagasse substrate and rice straw substrate were 0.54 and 0.16 MPa, respectively. The two composites derived from rice straw and bagasse exhibited higher hydrophobic properties than others. In comparison, mycelium bio-composite derived from bagasse showed the best comprehensive properties. Except for a little worse anti-creep ability and waterproof performance, other properties of mycelium bio-composites could be comparable to commercially expanded polystyrene (EPS) packaging material. Derived from this study, mycelium material provided a good way to use agricultural residual byproducts and could be a good alternative to non-biodegradable materials for packaging applications.