{"id":213978,"date":"2025-05-14T06:28:39","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T11:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/versatile-fungi-based-living-material-is-tear-resistant-and-can-even-be-safely-eaten"},"modified":"2025-05-14T06:28:39","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T11:28:39","slug":"versatile-fungi-based-living-material-is-tear-resistant-and-can-even-be-safely-eaten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/versatile-fungi-based-living-material-is-tear-resistant-and-can-even-be-safely-eaten","title":{"rendered":"Versatile fungi-based living material is tear-resistant and can even be safely eaten"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/versatile-fungi-based-living-material-is-tear-resistant-and-can-even-be-safely-eaten2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sustainably produced, biodegradable materials are an important focus of modern materials science. However, when working with natural materials such as cellulose, lignin or chitin, researchers face a trade-off. Although these substances are biodegradable in their pure form, they are often not ideal when it comes to performance. Chemical processing steps can be used to make them stronger, more resistant or more supple\u2014but in doing so, their sustainability is often compromised.<\/p>\n<p>Empa researchers from the Cellulose and Wood Materials laboratory have now developed a bio-based material that cleverly avoids this compromise. Not only is it completely biodegradable, it is also tear-resistant and has versatile functional properties. All this takes place with minimal processing steps and without chemicals\u2014you can even eat it. Its secret: It\u2019s alive.<\/p>\n<p>The study is <a href=\"https:\/\/advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/adma.202418464\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the journal Advanced Materials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sustainably produced, biodegradable materials are an important focus of modern materials science. However, when working with natural materials such as cellulose, lignin or chitin, researchers face a trade-off. Although these substances are biodegradable in their pure form, they are often not ideal when it comes to performance. Chemical processing steps can be used to make [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1506,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-food","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}