When something goes mouldy in the fridge, it is annoying and wasteful.
However, at UBC Okanagan鈥檚 School of Engineering, mould is proving increasingly important in the domain of engineering materials and can lead to early deterioration and structural failure. This is especially the case as manufacturers adopt more bio-derived materials in the drive towards a greener future, says researcher Bryn Crawford.
At UBCO鈥檚 campus, a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from the Composites Research Network and the Department of Biology, in collaboration with MIT and the National Research Council of Canada, have been studying the development and application of bio-sourced composites鈥攕pecifically flax and hemp fibres.
These materials are plentiful in Canada and can be mixed with other materials to create cheaper, recyclable, and effective composite material products that are used by a range of industries, including in transportation.
鈥淐anada has a lot of biomass that can be used to produce materials that are both light and inexpensive,鈥� explains Crawford. 鈥淲e鈥檙e looking at ways of using biomass in engineering, but there is a level of natural deterioration in these products that is still not fully understood.鈥�
In the study, researchers conducted a number of experiments to determine if and when mould will grow on bio-materials and how it might affect the final product.
鈥淲hen we bring microbiology into engineering, it raises some extra questions; some questions we鈥檝e never thought about before,鈥� said Crawford. 鈥淏ut because we鈥檙e now using biological matter, we have to think of fungal growth and how this fungal growth will affect a product鈥檚 performance.鈥�
The research team examined flax and hemp fibres alongside other natural materials to determine what would happen over time to these fibres. They created 鈥榝ibre sheets鈥� and then added fungi to some, water to others, and left another group of sheets untreated.
Crawford says they are not surprised that the materials grew mould; the idea of the project was to determine the types of environment where the fungal spores would grow and then test mechanical properties of the affected materials. The team conducted a variety of tests examining them for strength, stiffness, or the amount of energy that can be absorbed before the bio-composite materials failed. They also used scanning electron microscopy to take an extreme close-up of the interior of the sample to determine fungal growth patterns, examine fractures, and failure zones.
鈥淚t was a huge experiment and we found that in both the hemp and flax fibres, when no fungi were added, we still had fungi growing,鈥� Crawford adds. 鈥淏asically, when raw natural fibres are exposed to high relative humidity, mould will grow and the potential for premature structural failure can occur.鈥�
Crawford says that this susceptibility to mould growth is important for supply chains and factories to understand and manage, in order to ensure they鈥檙e creating durable and robust products.
鈥淏io-composites made from natural fibres are good for both the environment and the economy and could help usher in the next revolution in manufacturing. More multi-disciplinary research of this kind is vital to producing high-quality and durable bio-composite materials that help make that leap.鈥�
The research was recently published in Materials and was partially funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Fonds de recherche du Qu茅bec鈥擭ature et technologies. It was conducted in collaboration with Sepideh Pakpour, Negin Kazemian, John Klironomos, Karen Stoeffler, Denis Rho, Joanne Denault and Abbas Milani.
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