04/05/16

As I mentioned in the previous post, the experiment concerning floral foams with the clear flour came to an end as the company that Ecovative was testing for did not place a strict requirement/ priority. Consequently, today I started a new experiment but for the same project (dealing with floral foams).

The experiment deals with the concentration of surfactant. "A surfactant is briefly defined as a material that can greatly reduce the surface tension of water when used in very low concentrations." The surfactant used in particular for our floral foams is SugaNate. This material is very expensive and I was informed that it costs approximately $1.75 per block of floral foam using using only 0.1% concentration of SugaNate!!!. Thus, this test was to figure out the least amount of SugaNate required for floral foams still to perform their function. We tested concentrations of: 0.1%, 0.05% and 0.01% SugaNate. In short, what we are going to be looking for was how the uptake of blocks change with different concentrations of SugaNate.

The basic procedure is:
Suganate is incorporated into the Floral Foams via the pressure cookers. First, for approximately 1 hour, the block of floral foam is put in the cooker with NaOH in order to sterilize the foam (basic procedure). After this step, the block is moved to a different cooker with a mixture of SugaNate and water for about 5 minutes.

Hopefully, this coming Wednesday I find that 0.01% of SugaNate can still be used to produce similar results to that of 0.1% of SugaNate which will save Ecovative a lot of money!!

http://www.chemistry.co.nz/surfactants.htm

03/12/14

During my time at my internship, I was informed of the results that were collected from the ongoing project with the floral foams. Of the myriad of different experiments that we performed with these very foams, the one I wrote in particular about was the addition of clear flour. There were 3 floral foams involved: #1 was our control, #2 was the one to which we added 32grams of clear flour, and #3 was the one in which we added (approximately) 94 grams of clear flour. When I state that a number of clear flour was added, I mean, more specifically, to say that clear flour was added in the regrind (the material that makes up the floral foams).

In addition, for those who do not know or are mistaking clear flour with the everyday flour used in baking: "Clear flour is the portion of the flour remaining after the patent flour streams have been separated. Clear flour generally contain a higher percentage of protein than the other grades, but the quality of the protein is lower." Or in other words, clear flour is cheaper than the typical flour found in markets and it contains a higher percentage/about the same (or maybe just a little lower but the difference is negligible). Thus, Ecovative is killing two birds with one stone by applying clear flour over regular flour.

My mentor alerted me that for #1, mold appeared on day 5; for #2, mold appeared on day 5 and had better feature resolution; for #3, mold appeared on day 4. Thus, it was concluded that about 32grams was the amount of clear flour that would give Ecovative the best results as compared to no clear flour (#1) and too much clear flour (#3).

This stated, my mentor could have performed more tests to further figure out a more precise amount of clear flour that would produce the ideal floral foam. However, the company that this very product is for was content with the number of days as with 32grams of clear flour, the floral foams, as stated prior, can last for a minimum of 5 days without any mold, and on top of this, because it has good feature resolution, we have found that the mold typically begins underneath--a place where customers will not on their everyday-basis look at. In addition, most flowers do not have that long of a life-span and so it is most probable to state that the a majority of consumers will throw away the product before mold is actually seen.

http://www.thebakerynetwork.com/baking-science

02/26/14-03/05/14

On this day at Ecovative, I learned how to work the ECA machine. (Electro Chemical Activation technology). Using this machine, I prepared for and carried out chemical treatments for floral foams, a product that is currently in the workings at Ecovative. Put more simply, Electro Chemical Activation is used to make ECA solutions by "mixing readily available food grade salt with water thereafter passing the brine solution through patented reactors...once inside the reactor, the brine is activated by way on an electrical charge and two distinct solutions are produced."

Put in chemical terms:

H20 + NaCl <=> NaOH + HClO
(H+ + OH- + Na+ + Cl- <=> Na+ + OH- + H+ + ClO-)

This machine was used because normally mycelium produces Acly groups that are hydrophobic. However, because we were out to create floral foams (a spongy foam that soaks up water and acts both as a preservative to lengthen flower life and a support to hold them in place), we had to make the very groups hydrophilic. Thus, by treating it with ECA solutions, aka, by using a strong base to deacylate the group, we were, put in layman's terms, "chopping off" the hydrophobic part.

To the left is a diagram of an Acly group. R simply stands for any chemical chain. The hydrophobic part of acyl groups is the double bond between the carbon and the oxygen molecule. Consequently, by using the ECA machine, I deacylated the chain and "chopped" that specific part out to make the product hydrophobic.

The solution I am pouring out here is the solution made from the ECA machine that will be inserted and sealed with the raw floral foams (in bags) as shown in the bottom picture. This is so that the deacylate reaction takes place, making the floral foam products hydrophobic rather than hydrophilic. 

a more close up shot of the required amount of solution for each bag (which contained 4  raw floral foams products)

After inserting the solution into each of the bags, the next and final step was to seal the bags using the Vacmaster as shown above. 

02/19/14

 Last Wednesday, for the first time in quite some time, I did not work in the "dirty room" but rather spent my time working in the lab. The week before I had made the compost and sterilized each of the bags. This week, consequently, I took these same bags and proceeded with the next step, which is to take apart the fully-mixed substrate which had been "glued" together by the ingrown mycelium. A new thing that I had not previously known was that after completely separating the substrate into bits and pieces, a certain tailored amount of flour was added to the mix. The flour was said to help speed colonization once the substrate we took apart were inserted into packaging molds.

The material I was working with last Wednesday and the week before was twine. My mentor and I found this to be a very tricky material to work the week before as we have to laboriously take apart every single clump of twine before inserting it into the bag of substrate we were making. Sometimes we would need something like 35grams of twine and that was a pain. With other materials such as corn husk, all I would have to do is measure out 35grams of the material, but with twine, I had to carefully pick out and come up with 35 grams worth of pieces (or take apart the lumps) of twine that were not clumped together.
The difficulty with twine did not stop from there. This week, my mentor and I found that of the 7 bags that we had painstakingly put together, about 3 to 4 of them had formed mold. Thus, long story short, we were not able to use them and they had to go to the trash. (such a waste, my heart broke upon throwing of throwing the very bags that I had spent so much time working on). My mentor explained to me that the very bags most likely became contaminated due to the process in which they handle the material. After we had made the bags and put them in the heat chambers for sterilization, the next step was to take apart the substrate in the bags and give them a thorough mix via gloved hands. This is when she suspects the substrate became contaminated. (due to the bacteria in the air--despite it being done in the sterilized lab). She informed me that this had to be done given the particular characteristics of twine. Unless someone comes up with a different way, this was, unfortunately, the protocol when dealing with twine. This incident had me realize yet again how susceptible materials are to contamination and consequently how important it is to be sterile and take that extra precaution no matter how silly it may seem. It also made me realize that there are times when the whole batch prepared a week before becomes contaminated and when scientists have to start again from ground 0.

01/12/14: Different Types of Mushroom Substrate

          This past Wednesday, I spent my time again in the "dirty room" aka the room where Ecovative keeps all of their substrates. A substrate is basically any substance on which mycelium will grow on. There is an endless number of waste products mushrooms can decompose and when cultivating mushrooms, based on the particular substrate one can obtain different characteristics. Each time I come to Ecovative, I, time and time again, become amazed at the fact that mycologists can literally use almost anything we think of as "trash/waste" and turn it into a viable product that, in a nutshell, can help save the Earth!!

For instance, mycologists use most of the major debris that comes from farming or forestry.

       Of course one can not simply pick a batch of twigs from the forest floor and start cultivating. Mycelium grows best on substrates when they have been broken down into smaller pieces, 1/4 to 2 inches. 

Some of the different types of materials that can be processed by mycologists include:

• bambo
• brewery waste
• cacao shells
• cacti
• coconut/ coconut husk fiber
• coffee beans, grounds, hills, & debris
• corn, corncobs, cornstalks
• cotton & cotton waste
• fabrics
• garden waste, grass clippings, & yard debris
• hair
• hemp
• leaves
• manure
• nut casings & seed hulls
• oils (vegetable & petroleum)
• paper products (newspapers, cardboard, money, & books)
• soybean roughage
• straws (wheat, rye, rice, oats, barley, etc)
• sugarcane
• tea, tea waste, leaves, & trimmings
• textiles
• tobacco & tobacco stalks
• trees, shrubs, brush, & wooden construction waste

Stamets, Paul. Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help save the World. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed, 2005. Print.

In spirit of Valentines Weekend, here's a cute image for you!

http://cheezburger.com/7485785344

02/05/14

I could not go to Ecovative this Wednesday because we had a snow day.

(Also, this is a very general summary of the steps that is required to create the packaging product)

01/29/14

Last Wednesday at Ecovative I helped make bags in the dirty room. What I did that day is the very first step scientists here perform in order to create their final mushroom packaging product. The dirty room is the room that contains all myriad of compost materials used to create their mushroom packaging product. For instance, there is a container that holds different waste products like saw dust and chopped up corn stalks and husks. It was a bit like cooking—like following a set recipe. After I filled the required number of bags needed to be completed for that day with compost, I weighed out a specific amount of calcium carbonate, CaCO₃ and added it to each bag. This substance, CaCO₃ has the effect of enhancing the myclelial linear growth rate. After this step, I added about a half a liter of water into each bag and thoroughly mixed all the components together. These plastic bags and their contents are then sterilized in an autoclave for about an hour and then allowed to cool. Then the mixture is injected with small pellets of mycelium and left to grow. I may have explained this process once before, but this was my first time that I actually got to start from the very beginning, with nothing but the rare ingredients. The person that I worked with, Christina, my mentor’s partner, showed me the different results/physical and chemical characteristics that one would get from using different compostable materials. When with my mentor, Courtney I mainly worked with analyzing the many different products, today I had fun stepping out of the zone and getting my hands dirty.

This video above may help you gain a better picture of what I meant in my explanation above.