Homeowners eager for green ways to keep their houses cool in the summer and warm in the winter may soon have an alternative to the pink fiberglass insulation they have used for decades. Troy, N.Y.,-based Ecovative Design is testing the ability of its Greensulate™—a sustainable building material made from mushroom fibers, rice hulls and recycled paper—to resist temperature change, stop fire and repel water in accordance with American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) International standards….
Ecovative expects to test Greensulate™ over the next year to, among other things, see if the building material can resist mold growth even if it becomes saturated by water, says Gavin McIntyre, who along with Eben Bayer invented Greensulate in 2006 when both were seniors at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. They later formed Ecovative to continue their work.
If McIntyre and Bayer are satisfied with the results of the tests, they will hire a third-party testing firm to do its own testing and, hopefully, certify that Greensulate™ meets ASTM standards. The next hurdle will be penetrating the “entrenched building industry,” Bayer says. He and McIntyre—who have patented their product—think Greensulate™ has considerable advantages over competing materials, including cost. “That’s the beauty of this whole thing,” McIntyre says. “The rice hulls are agricultural garbage. They sell them for about five dollars a ton.” The product’s fibrous mycelium mushroom roots are free, because Bayer and McIntyre grow them, and recycled paper is readily available. “And our product isn’t tied to gas prices, because there’s no petroleum in it,” he adds. “Our current material projections are equal or below the existing cost of board insulations (like polystyrene).”
Greensulate™ is also a proved fire retardant: It withstood heat up to 600 degrees Celsius. Bayer says he was able to hold a piece of Greensulate in his hand, blast the panel with an acetylene welding torch, and not feel heat on the other side.
Ecovative Design has also developed a new packaging. Acorn™ packaging takes a radically different approach to packaging. it is made of agricultural waste materials that come from renewable sources. This environmentally-friendly innovation is just as reliable, easy to use, and affordable as competitive packaging products, like expanded polystyrene. it is 100% compostable after use, and can be embedded with grass, flower and plant seeds, which draw upon the material as it breaks down to fuel organic growth. When you compost your Acorn™ packaging, you make the world a greener place.
Source 1, source 2
– Related posts / Billets à lire, en complément :
Popular Posts