FUNGUSCHAIN project - Mushrooms waste is in vogue

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Mushrooms waste valorisation is a burning topic in the European bioeconomy as is shown by two of the last projects supported by BBI JU. On the one hand, BIOrescue which is aimed to develop and demonstrate a new innovative biorefinery concept based on the cascading use of spent mushroom substrate (learn more about BIOrescue). On the other hand, the protagonist of this post, FUNGUSCHAIN which will make use of new cascading processes to extract high value molecules from the fungal residue following the requirements of a range of end-users.

The mushroom farming industry in Europe generates more than 60,000 tons of mushroom disregarded outputs each week. These are basically treated as an unwanted by-product and used for low value applications. FUNGUSCHAIN aims to turn those outcomes into high value products by means of setting up innovative processes in a new biorefinery concept. A first extraction will yield antimicrobials, antioxidants, proteins, polyols and polysaccharides. Further processing will complete the value chain for delivering cleaning, food and plastic products. The remaining residues will be used for composting or biogas synthesis, thus closing the agricultural cycle.

Industrial lines from end-users will be modified and adapted to the products to be developed: food supplements for elderlies, cleaning products, novel biobased thermoplastic masterbatches, bioplasticizers and industrial film products (thin bags and gloves <15 microns, partially recycled thick bags >50 microns and mulching).

Figure 1. FUNGUSCHAIN biorefinery approach (extracted from a presentation about the project of Aitiip)

Key information

Title
Valorisation of mushroom agrowastes to obtain high value products (FUNGUSCHAIN)
Call
BBI JU 2015
VC3 (Value chain 3: The next generation agro-based value chains)
Biorefinery concept
Feedstock: agricultural residues coming from mushroom (Agaricus Bisporus).
Primary products: high value bio-based additives (antioxidants, antimicrobials, proteins), lipids and polysaccharides (glucans and fermentable sugars).
Secondary products: bioplasticizers (from lipids), biopolymers (from polysaccharides), compost and/or biogas (using remaining side streams).
Processes: extraction (Microwave Assisted Extraction and Pressurised Hot Water Extraction), sacharification, fermentation, composting and anaerobic digestion.
Budget
Total cost: € 8,143,661 / BBI JU contribution: € 5,700,547
Duration
From 01/11/2016 to 31/10/2020
Coordinator
BioDetection Systems B.V.
Partnership
4 large industries: Corbion Purac (Netherlands), Novamont (Italy), Monaghan Mushrooms Ireland (Ireland) and Saponia d.d. Osijek (Croatia).
8 SMEs: BioDetection Systems B.V. (Netherlands), Biotrend (Portugal), biozoon (Germany), Condensia Quimica (Spain), Miplast (Croatia), Neem Biotech (United Kingdom), OWS (Belgium) and TECNARO (Germany).
4 research and technology development entities: Aitiip Centro Tecnológico (Spain), European Centre for Nanostructured Polymers (Italy), Universidad de Alicante (Spain) and KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden).

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