A team of researchers from the University of Coimbra (FCTUC) has created a product from forestry waste and fungi that could be used for construction.
Scientists from the Faculty of Science and Technology have developed a product from forestry waste and fungi that can be used in construction, especially for the interior walls of buildings, the university announced in a press release on Monday.
The project is part of the Value2Prevent partnership, which aims to “add value to forest biomass, add value to forests and also increase the yield of products.”
According to João Martins, a researcher at the Centre for Functional Ecology (CFE) in the FCTUC’s Department of Life Sciences (DCV), “Forestry producers usually don’t have much incentive to clear land because the biomass produced from clearing is not very valuable: it has to be transported to specific locations, and transport and collection are very expensive. So, the returns have to be high to make it worthwhile for them.”
With this in mind, the team has developed a product that can be used in construction, particularly in interior walls.
“The idea is to use forest biomass waste, inoculate it with a fungus that is able to partially degrade the biomass and create a type of cement by aggregating all the particles into a block. This product is then dried to inactivate the fungus and can then be used inside two wooden planks, replacing the synthetic materials that are currently used,” he explained.
As well as being a sustainable alternative, this product also has other advantages, such as thermal and acoustic properties.
“It’s as sustainable as wood but as efficient as synthetic cladding at low cost. Biomass is relatively cheap and we can easily produce these blocks,” he pointed out.
Trees such as eucalyptus, maritime pine, arbutus and a mixture of shrubs were used for the trials.
In the future, the team intends to test this same technique with other biomass products, such as bioplastic, cork and rubber, which could make the acoustic and thermal properties of this material even more effective.
Value2Prevent is promoted by SerQ, an innovation center for forests, in partnership with the University of Coimbra (UC), the Higher Institute of Agronomy and the Forest Life Sciences Centre in Proença-a-Nova.
