Mushrooms are used to produce electronic chips

A group of Austrian scientists comes up with a creative and revolutionary solution for so-called e-waste (recycling computerscell phones, televisions and other unusable devices): biodegradable animal skin substrates mushrooms as a raw material for making chips.

According to an article describing the study published this month in the journal Scientific achievementsdubbed “MycelioTronics”, this technology shows great potential as a possible replacement for traditionally plastic printed circuit boards, among others.

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Substrates, which provide the basis for heating and cooling computer components, form the bulk of many electronic products. Unfortunately, its conventional composition is extremely harmful to the environment, both because of the difficulty of separating it from other components and because of its slow wear.

Therefore, according to the website New scientist, substrates are a significant contributor to the approximately 50 million metric tons of e-waste generated each year. “The substrate itself is the hardest part to recycle,” said Martin Kaltenbrunner, a researcher at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, and one of those responsible for the project.

According to him, the idea of ​​using mushrooms came about as a result of a happy laboratory case: while investigating whether it was possible to make insulation for houses from the skins of mushrooms, scientists discovered that the membranes covering the mycelium – or roots – of reishi mushrooms (Ganoderma lacquered), in particular, were remarkably “strong, flexible, and heat-resistant, capable of withstanding temperatures up to nearly 250 degrees Celsius. “Basically all the qualities you might want in electronic substrates,” says Kaltenbrunner.

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The researchers conducted several experiments in which they covered the dry skin of the fungus with a layer of copper, chromium and goldto improve conductivity. From above they used laser for printing conductive rails and found that the product behaves like a printed circuit board (PCB), with the advantage of being biodegradable.

According to the team, tests have shown that the skin of the mushroom works flawlessly. Although not yet ready for large-scale production, there is hope that one day this mycelium material will become a standard substrate for printed circuit boards, flexible electronics, and even medical devices.

The reishi mushroom is very popular in Asia and has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for over four millennia. Some describe it as the mushroom of immortality.

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