Greensulate - the Eco Friendly Insulation Made from Mushrooms

What could be better than growing your own eco friendly insulation for your new home?

With more consumers interested in the newer ideas of going green and using natural biodegradable and less expensive products in construction, Greensulate could be one of the most welcome answers.

Growing Greensulate in a container under the bed?

Gavin McIntyre and Eben Bayer started some experiments to find a natural and eco friendly insulating material that would be safe and provide a lower cost protection from heat and cold. Starting with mushrooms and needing darkness for growth of the root fibers, they first grew Greensulate in a seven by seven inch plastic tray under the bed. After some setbacks in researching and combining certain ingredients and some yeast explosions, they found success in 2006. Greensulate was on its way.

Rice hulls or perlite?

Perlite was one of the first trial ingredients until it was discovered that rice hulls, an agricultural waste, was selling for five dollars a ton making Greensulate affordable and sustainable, even fire resistant. Consumers could save millions of dollars in energy cost.

How is Greensulate made?

Greensulate is a patented insulating product made by pouring the natural and safe materials, hydrogen peroxide, starch and water into a mold and injecting live mushroom cells. The calls digest the starch and continue to grow into a mesh of connecting root strands. When it is finished growing, in about two weeks, it is dried with the finished product resembling the texture of a soda cracker.

Called by some to be a great inovative revolutionary invention, it joins the growing world of earth friendly consumer demands for safe greener planet products. It acts as a firewall, is inexpensive and requires little energy to produce. Greensulate is renewable and made mostly from waste agricultural products.

Time needed to "grow" this natural insulation?

A Greensulate panel needs from five to fourteen days to grow and will last the lifetime of the building. All that is needed for the manufacturing of this product is darkness and space. According to McIntyre, "It could be an old Kmart."

Greensulate or synthetic foam?

Not just for insulation, Greensulate is a renewable earth friendly and safe product that can also be used for packaging frozen foods, disposable coolers and surfboards and it can be formed into almost any shape? Greensulate, another hope for a greener planet.

Sources:

http://www.greensulate.com/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensulate
PBS - WVPY January 04 11 Biz Kids
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensulate
www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm??id=staying-cool-greensulate