DEVELOPMENT
Our design has been through many iterations. This page has our updated thoughts and work on what our final product will look like.
Current Working Design
The current goal of our design is to pre-treat household plastics, then "feed" them to fungi. This will serve as a small-scale proof of concept for an industrial level facility. View all past iterations of our design here.
01
Plastic shredder
Small pieces of plastic are broken down much faster by fungi. But shredding plastic is incredibly expensive. After much deliberation we've opted to include a small, hand-cranked plastic shredder, to get the most bang for our buck. We've purchased and assembled a pre-machined kit, as well as built a mount for our shredder piece.
02
UV Photodegradation Chamber
UV light begins the chemical degradation of plastic through a process called photodegradation. Pre-treatment with this process helps fungi to break down plastic more quickly. Our UV chamber will include bar lights and a removable tray to place plastic. UV also helps kill bacteria on the plastic, which protects our fungi.
03
Growth Chamber
The fungal growth chamber is the most complex part of our prototype. Pleurotus Ostreatus requires high humidity and stable temperatures. Our growth chamber has to be a sealed environment with humidity control. We've created an electronic humidity control system using an arduino microcontroller. The chamber has deep trays for our growth substrate, which will be mixed with processed PE plastic.
