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中国の研究者が、自己清掃や表面の更新ができる、生菌類由来のテキスタイルを開発しました。この材料は、特定の栄養液と鮮菌を用いて穴が修復されるとともに、藍色などの色彩やUV抵抗力も獲得できることが報告されています。
Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology（Shenzhen先端技術研究所）の研究チームは、工程合成材料（Engineering Living Material: ELM）として知られる生組織由来の素材を開発しました。従来の菌類とは異なり、菌類を活動状態で構築した後もその機能が維持されます。
この新しい技術により、菌類は自ら再生し、環境に反応する能力を持つようになりました。研究チームはScience Advances誌に報告しています。彼らは「プログラム可能な真菌プラットフォーム」と呼ぶシステムを開発し、菌糸をモジュールのように扱います。その上に色やUV抵抗力などの追加機能が「プラグアンドプレイ」で追加できます。
この技術により、衣料品や建築物の革新が可能になると期待されています。開発した生菌類由来の素材は、45度の乾燥後も活動的ではなく、死んでいるわけでもなく、「低代謝、眠るような状態」として機能します。新鮮な栄養液を適用することで、 Dormant状態にある菌糸が活性化し、新たな菌糸を生み出し、表面を再生できます。また、穴が修復される際には、その部位に栄養液と一部の新鮮な菌類を適用すると、その場で修復されます。
このテキスタイルは天然の自己清掃性も持っています。また、耐用年数や視覚的表現など、重要な特性を持つアプリケーションでの使用が期待されていますが、より優れた耐久性、湿気抵抗性、安全性、生産性の一貫性が必要です。
Researchers in China have developed a living mycelium textile that can self-clean, renew its surface, and partially repair holes when treated with a nutrient solution and fresh fungus. The material can also gain added properties such as blue pigmentation or UV resistance by co-culturing it with yeast or other fungi. Dezeen reports: The breakthrough from the researchers at the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology is a type of engineered living material (ELM) -- a material built off living organisms that stay active even after they're fabricated into their final form. [...] By working with living but dormant cordyceps militaris fungus instead, the researchers have been able to take advantage of its biological functions. The result is a material that is self-renewing and responsive to its environment, in ways that could one day transform architecture and clothing -- as seen in a prototype dress created together with material innovation company Peelshere.
It can also be adapted by mixing in other fungi or yeast, lead researcher Ke Li and her team detail in a paper in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances. In it, they describe a "programmable fungal platform" where mycelium is treated like a modular system, with the sheet material forming a base structure and extra biological abilities, such as colour and UV resistance, becoming "plug-and-play" add-ons via other organisms. This gets their textile closer to the self-repair, environmental responsiveness and controllable functionality that is the promise of engineered living materials, they argue.
The ELM's self-renewing and semi-repairing functionality comes from the mycelium base structure. Following drying at 45 degrees, the material is not quite living and not quite dead, but instead in a "low-metabolic, dormant-like state", Li told Dezeen, meaning it is not actively growing. However, new growth can be triggered by applying a nutrient solution of potato water, leading the dormant mycelium to germinate, send out new fungal filaments and renew the material's surface. When this nutrient solution is applied over a hole, along with a small patch of fresh fungus, it triggers the living cells to grow across the gap, seamlessly repairing the surface without any adhesives or stitching. The material is also naturally self-cleaning, as it is hydrophobic. "Its distinctive surface texture, biological colouring, controlled repair and biodegradability may be particularly useful in applications where visual expression and a defined product lifetime are important," said Li.
"Further improvements in durability, moisture resistance, safety and manufacturing consistency would be needed before it could be considered for routine clothing or permanent architectural use."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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