Chitin
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5094803/ https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-10-08-anti-cancer-drug-derived-fungus-shows-promise-clinical-trials https://www.statnews.com/2021/11/09/largest-psilocybin-trial-finds-psychedelic-effective-treating-serious-depression/ https://kylegabriel.com/projects/2021/09/mushroom-cultivation-automation.html https://patents.google.com/patent/CN104586732A/en https://bnrc.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s42269-019-0105-y https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcimb.2020.00028/full https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2817921/ https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2019.00243/full#T3 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7073968/ http://kylegabriel.com/projects/ https://grocycle.com/how-to-set-up-a-low-tech-mushroom-farm/ https://scitechdaily.com/engineered-bacteria-convert-captured-carbon-dioxide-into-valuable-chemicals-for-fuels-fabric-and-cosmetics/amp/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1369702121004077 https://improvemushroomcultivation.com/how-to-sterilize-mushroom-substrate-without-a-pressure-cooker/ https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2022/02/the-future-is-fungi/ https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/mushrooms%3A-the-next-big-thing-in-environmentally-friendly-packaging-and-construction
I hope to commence large scale vegetable bio-chitin cultivation & robotic manufacturing, failing that I will likely resort to natural processes that have been operational for the last ~420 million years. I hope to combine the bio-chitin with other constituents such as/including bioengineered enzymes, thin aerogels & variously doped conductive layers, to create a variety of useful biopolymers with embedded transistors (bio-sensors) with materials which are principally obtained from waste outputs such as household waste, electronics, or alternative mining tailings.
Today the global market for bio-chitin is zero and the marine-chitin global market is < $100m USD globally (made from waste marine arthropod shells using hydrochloric acid).
These are all harmful methods & practices I hope to obviate asap, since they are unsustainable and global demand for marine-chitin would be bad for marine life on a planetary scale and my goal is to “do no harm” with the systems I develop.
* myco-chitin processed in synthetic fabrication of novel biopolymer substrates
* crab & lobster shell - marine chine
* insect cockroach, beetle claw - bio-chitin
* fungal mycellial chitin - myco-chitin
* doping & impregntation methods for biopolymer synthesis
* produces: (anticipated) lightweight structural components
* with elastic high-tensile strength
* selectively transistive dielectric properties (suitable for semiconductors)
* renewable, consuming principally cellulose wood-waste and doing soil remediation
* applications:
* air-foils, hydrofoils, wings
* drone frames, marine applications (non porus, hydrophobic)
* robotic & aerospace vehicle exoskeletons
* (anticipated) selectively biodegradable (different synthesis methods)
* packaging
* comestible food "impossible meat"
* (anticipated) selectively transisitve (made of a dielectric, can be selectively impregnated)
* (anticipated) suitable for biosensors
* selectively transparent (in some atomic configurations)
* reported methods for making it transarent by remove opaque ligands
* 2x strongr than aluminum, 6x stronger than steel strength to weight ratio in some atomic configurations
In the past year I have become enamored with sustainable manufacturing processes incorporating lightweight (chitin-based) biopolymers with layered manufacturing to create integrated sensors, electrodes, or other ‘bio-mechatronics’ -- for use in combination with other doped substrates such as laser etched graphene or silicon. Chitin is similar to keratin and is a 100% renewable alternative to cellulose. Chitin is naturally white or transparent, water impermeable, highly elastic, insulative & fire-resistant building material. Chitin is well suited for a variety of applications such as replacing bakelite/plastics in PCB’s or binding cellulose or other nano-textiles (similar to epoxy resin) creating “smart fabrics”. My specific application of interest is developing structural batteries using layered manufacturing with carbon & graphene-based deposition (technically: structural ultra-capacitors that don’t degrade like batteries).
Chitin, the etymology of the word means “shell”, the material made up of highly stable N-acetylglucosamine glucose bonds that are well suited for a plurality of applications such as aerospace. Chitin possesses properties that are 6x stronger than steel, 2x stronger than aluminum in strength to weight ratios comparisons. Chitin is well-positioned for lightweight robotic exoskeletons with material properties identical to those found on its namesake arthropods (crabs, mollusks, etc.). Chitin (or water-soluble chitosan) is commercially available from a limited number of companies using principally marine waste (stinky crab shells) and is apparently universally processed with environmentally disruptive hydrochloric acid making it suitable for my sustainability goals. Chitin can also be harvested from vetegal (mushroom) sources using a less popular enzymatic process known as ‘snailase’ which is not considered a ‘commercially viable’ alternative to hydrochloric acid.
To facilitate this project above I am presently working on an apparatus to robotically extract the gastrointestinal juices of slugs which are enzymatically rather than using hydrochloric acid. Keep in mind you can cut a snail in half and it will become two snails so this model is very sustainable.
So for the Fungible.Farm hypothesis - is roughly, if evolution can make an electric eel, and Alessandro Volta can study that eel in 1800, and create a voltaic pile (battery), then I'm 'pretty sure' with my access to the Internet & my own ability to build/fabricate technology I can 3d print an electrically capactive mushroom. I can do this because mushrooms are made of myco-chitin which is a dilectric (a dilectric means it's an electrically 'insulative' material, not resistive, chitin, like ceramic does not allow electrons to pass, ergo either silicon, graphene or other atomically conductive materials could use the chitin as a substrate if a suitable deposition method such as additive deposition [3d printing] or other method such as photolithography can be identified). The Fungible.Farm goal is to grow (produce) and subsequently test many different mycochitin substrates & deposition methods as part of a TRIZ methodology hopefully in conjuction with CEAT.
My intuition says the next hurdle I will need to overcome is to explain "what" I intend to farm, broadly, this is components of future cybernetic systems, I summarize this by saying "robotic exoskeletons".
While this seems outlandish at first glance, insect & marine shrimp, crab, mollusk exoskeletons, beetle & lobster claws are also made of chitin (marine-chitin or bio-chitin, vs. myco-chitin) - they are lightweight, elastic (flexible), and very strong. The word 'chitin' means crab [shell] in ancient greek. I am not using the marine sources of chitin because I do not believe it is appropriate to build cybernetic systems that farm animals or insect shells for entirely ethical reasons. Presently myco-chitin is not commercially cultivated - the global market is $0 and in my case, the cultivation is a critical part of the experimentation, since the conductive substrates must be fabricated (additively deposited, 3d printed) in-situ during cultivation - many ways to "skin the cat", except I don't want cat-skins -- so this is "many ways to impregnate the fungi"
Now surficially I'm hoping to do similar types of experiments & outcomes as that project - "same-same but different" except within the queendom fungora, so the methods are similar but will produce different outcomes. And instead of growing furniture (as that article suggests), I am hoping to "grow" structural ultracapacitors by producing lightweight, high tensile dilectric myco-chitin based materials with semi-conductive properties, allowing for electrically transistive field effects (this will be done using methods commonly used in 3d printing) - these should produce shaped 'batteries' suitable for applications as aerospace jet-rocket fins, vehicle airfoils & marine hydrofoils (as potential straightforward examples).