Media Contact: Ann R. Thryft, Senior Technical Editor, Materials & Assembly

It's one thing to create bio-based resins from food crop feedstocks. It's another to produce them using sugar cane trash and other plant waste to avoid competing with human food and animal feed crops. But what if you could just grow your biomaterials and plastic replacements, avoiding all the time- and resource-consuming steps in the polymer creation cycle? Ecovative has figured out how to do this by growing mushroom roots on plant trash, and it is expanding its operations by partnering with Sealed Air, the inventor of Bubble Wrap.

The two companies will work together to "accelerate the production, sales, and distribution of Ecovative’s EcoCradle Mushroom Packaging," the companies said in a brief joint press release.

Ecovative's plastics are based on mycelium, or mushroom roots. The company bills them as alternatives to petrochemical-based materials, such as the extruded polystyrene foam, or Styrofoam, used for packaging heavy items during shipping.

The EcoCradle Mushroom Packaging material is grown in a process in which a fungal network of threadlike cells digests agricultural wastes, such as plant stalks and seed husks. The process binds the cells into a structural material like a self-assembling glue. No water, light, or fertilizer is required for growth, and the used material can be composted aerobically or anaerobically in consumers' backyards.

A blend of agricultural byproducts is cleaned and inoculated, or planted, with mycelium. This process does not involve spores. An automated process fills grow tray forms with the mixture. When the material has reached the desired shape and size, its growth is stopped through dehydration and heat treatment.

Ecovative focuses on using renewable, regional raw materials as feedstocks. Because of the way the material is created, a broad range of feedstocks can be used to create materials with different properties. Density, strength, texture, and appearance, among other factors, can be tuned for a specific application.

In addition to replacing expanded plastic foam packaging, Ecovative is working on several other applications for the technology, including replacing dense materials like particle board, which uses toxic adhesives that contain formaldehyde. The company is also developing several insulation materials for the construction industry, as well as replacements for plastic automobile foams. Other research involves structural biocomposite materials using engineered textiles, since the mycelium binding technology also works on synthetic textiles such as fiberglass and carbon fibers.

Founded five years ago, Ecovative was incubated at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, one of the company's investors along with 3M and the DOEN Foundation. Its products have won awards such as the DuPont Packaging Innovation Diamond Award and the Greener Package Innovator of the Year award. Ecovative was named a Tech Pioneer at the 2011 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Additional funding has come from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance.