Fungal foam (mushroom plastic) is a new type of environmentally friendly material with huge industry development potential

Fungal foam, also known as mushroom plastic, is a mycelial foam made from crop fertilizers such as plant straw, rice, sugarcane bagasse and wheat husks, bonded to mushroom roots, and grown through fungi. Fungal foam is a type of mycelium-based plastic foam. It is environmentally friendly, biodegradable, has readily available raw materials, is light in weight, has high strength, has strong impact resistance, has significant sound insulation effect, has strong heat resistance, and has a long service life. Advantages: It is a new type of environmentally friendly material with great development prospects. According to different properties, fungal foam can be divided into two categories: rigid fungal foam and flexible fungal foam.

With its good properties, fungal foam can accelerate the replacement of commonly used commercial packaging materials, such as polystyrene foam (EPS), polyurethane foam (PU), polyvinyl chloride foam (PVC), etc. Take polystyrene foam as an example. It is mainly made of polystyrene, a petroleum-based plastic. It has disadvantages such as being difficult to degrade, difficult to recycle, and damaging the ozone layer in the atmosphere. Currently, as the concept of sustainable development gradually takes root in people’s hearts and environmental protection supervision continues to increase, green, biodegradable fungal foam has become a key environmentally friendly material to replace EPS, PU, ​​etc.

According to the “2023-2028 Fungus Foam (Mushroom Plastic) Industry Market In-depth Research and Investment Prospect Forecast Analysis Report” released by the Industrial Research Center Shows that fungal foam has shown broad market prospects in the fields of construction, packaging, automobiles, textiles, daily chemicals, home furnishings, coatings and other fields. Specifically, in the construction field, fungal foam can be used in production scenarios such as building sound-absorbing panels, floors, panels, particle boards, thermal insulation cores, building insulation materials and refractory materials; in the automotive field, fungal foam can be used in car bumpers , engine compartments, roofs, doors, dashboards and other component manufacturing scenarios; in the field of packaging, fungal foam has higher safety performance and can be used in food, medicine, and electronic packaging material manufacturing scenarios.

As a new type of environmentally friendly material, fungal foam industry is still in its early development stage. Ecovative Design LLC, an American biomaterials company, is a representative enterprise in the fungal foam industry. It has entered the fungal foam research and development track in the early 21st century. So far, the company has achieved industrial production of fungal foam and has cooperated with IKEA, Dell, Ford, Merck, Cooperation has been reached with well-known brands such as Sealed Air and Fashion for Good. In addition, there are Mycoworks, BioMaison and other companies around the world that are developing fungal foam research and development fields. In the future, as the research and development process continues to accelerate, fungal foam is expected to accelerate its industrialization.

Industry AnalysisPersonnel said thatfungal foam is a new type of environmentally friendly material with various advantages such as green environmental protection and biodegradability. Currently, against the backdrop of the global biodegradable plastics industry’s continued boom, the fungal foam market has shown a Huge development potential. At present, American biomaterial companies have realized the industrial production of fungal foam, and representative products include MycoFoamTM, mCoreTM, etc. At the same time, most companies around the world have laid out fungal foam research and development tracks, and the industry’s development is expected to continue to accelerate in the future.