Scientists, engineers, and designers are shifting their focus – using innovative technologies to create products that are ecologically friendly alternatives – developing applications that can be used in transportation, housing, and other areas that keep us safe while at the same time, reducing carbon emissions.
The point of the research and development going on today is to create alternatives that can be used in a circular, low-waste ecosystem. This includes liquid wood, algae insulation, and polymer substitutes made from sources in the natural world, for example.
Stone wool used in construction
It takes some magic to transform natural igneous rock – the kind that forms after lava cools, and a steelmaking byproduct called slag – into a product that is sustainable and utilitarian. But when these two materials are melted together and spun into fibers, you end up with a product called Rockwool.
For years, fiberglass insulation, made with broken glass, and foamed plastic insulation have been used for their ability to block heat transfer in attics, roofs, and crawlspaces in buildings.
Stone wool can be engineered to not only block heat transfer, but it has other unique properties – including fire resilience, acoustic and thermal capabilities, water repellency and durability in extreme weather conditions. Another plus – it is also cost-effective and aesthetic.
The Rockwool Group, located in Hedehusene, Greater Copenhagen, Denmark, is a world leader in stone wool solutions covering building insulation, industrial and technical insulation, with production facilities in Europe, North America, and Asia.
There’s more to mushrooms than you think
Mushrooms are great when sauteed and gracing a steak, or adding flavor to spaghetti sauce. Soon, tree-hugging fungi and forest floor toadstools will replace a variety of materials, such as polystyrene, protective packaging, insulation, acoustic insulation, furniture, aquatic materials, and even leather goods.
Enter Mycoworks – a San Francisco, California-based startup which produces sustainable products and apparels from fungi. The company was founded in 2013 and produces weatherproof materials using fungi found in the roots of mushrooms used in footwear, batteries, and automobiles.
Mushrooms consist of a network of filaments called hyphae. Under ideal growth conditions, the fungi produce fruiting bodies that produce spores. The so-called mycelial products are thus easy to culture and germinate in a suitable substrate. The mycelial products are processed and then used to create products like handbags, purses and other wearables, according to co-founder Phil Ross. The final product is more resilient than cement.
A greener particleboard
Particleboard, or chipboard, as it is sometimes called, is an engineered wood product manufactured from wood chips, sawmill shavings, or even sawdust. A special resin is used to combine and compress the finished product into boards. However, particleboard, as is, doesn’t have a place in the green revolution.
This is because the resin used in making particleboards contains formaldehyde, a colorless, flammable, strong-smelling chemical, and known respiratory irritant and carcinogen. Not only can cutting particleboard release formaldehyde, but the chemical is released over time into the room where it is used.
To make particleboard a sustainable and greener building material, NU Green, Located in Sayabec, Quebec, created a material made from 100 percent pre-consumer recycled or recovered wood fiber called “Uniboard.” Not only does this company’s manufacturing process save trees, but landfills are avoided and there are far fewer greenhouse gasses emitted in the process.
The biggest difference in Nu Green’s particleboard is that it contains no formaldehyde. This is because Uniboard has pioneered the use of renewable fibers like corn stalks and hops. While wood is the most readily available biomass used in making particleboard, Uniboard is pioneering the use of agri-based fibers, investigating the use of corn stalks, hops, and other renewable fibers.
Another exciting venture being explored is the development of ligniculture, a process similar to farming whereby fast-growing wood species are cultivated through advanced techniques that ensure a renewable fiber supply and carbon-sequestration in a controlled environment.
Basically, ligniculture is the intensive cultivation of trees in short rotation plantations in order to obtain the maximum yield of ligneous matter. Research in ligniculture has been going on in Quebec for over 30 years, so Nu Green is right in the middle of the research and development of this unique agricultural practice.
