Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Due to climate change, a growing population and the accumulation of non-biodegradable materials, the human race is literally "in a race" to secure renewable chemicals, materials and energy. Canada is positioned to be a leader in this movement with abundant biomass residues that can serve as a reservoir of renewable raw materials to replace petroleum-based products. However, the use of biomass, such as agricultural residues, is limited by the energy/chemical intensive steps required to fractionate the cellulose (C), lignin (L) and hemicellulose (H) biomass components that enable their utilization. Fungi are adept in their ability to overcome the significant hurdles encountered when utilizing biomass. For example, white-rot fungi possess L-active enzymes (laccases, peroxidases etc.) that enable the direct use of L, the most recalcitrant biomass polymer. As a result, fungal mycelium has recently received significant attention for its potential to produce "self-growing" renewable materials (fungal derived materials-FDM) including building products, leathers, packaging, meat, etc. FDM are typically comprised of pure fungal mycelium, mycelium grown on biomass forming a composite, and materials produced from fruiting bodies. Despite the tremendous potential of FDM, mycelium is a highly variable and potentially customizable mixture of polysaccharides, chitin, lipids and proteins while biomass is a composite of L, C and H, exhibiting virtually limitless inherent heterogeneity. As a result, continued FDM development faces challenges due to knowledge gaps in the field. Most notably, there is a dearth of fundamental knowledge available elucidating the relationships between variations in fungi and properties of the growth substrate (such as chemical composition and physical properties) and their effects on the structural properties/chemical composition of the resulting FDM. Therefore, the goal of the research program is to elucidate the influence of the characteristics of C, H and L on the physical and chemical properties of FDM. This information will be used to improve the tunability of FDM properties and to develop FDM with novel useful properties to replace current non-renewable petroleum derived materials. Initially model substrates of L, C and H will be produced to determine how the nature of L, C and H influences the properties of FDM. Subsequent work will assess novel chemical treatments for processing FDM to produce modified and L-rich FDM. Finally, we will assess strategies for producing bioluminescent and highly porous FDM with potential for use in applications such as lighting, water purification and carbon capture. The proposed research program is a rich platform for generating knowledge on biomass-fungi interactions to improve FDM and provides multidisciplinary training on biomass processing/characteristics, microbiology, chemistry and engineering to produce the next generation of HQP for the growing bioeconomy.