Researchers teach fungi to draw
St.Gallen – Researchers at Empa have developed a technology for specifically treating wood with fungal cultures so that the patterns in the wood can be controlled. The resultant marbled wood can be processed into design furniture or musical instruments.
Fungi that decompose tree trunks can conjure up real works of art in wood. With fine black lines running through the wood, truffle beech, for example, is especially sought-after as a raw material for furniture production. A new technology from the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) enables the controlled use of fungal cultures to treat and create patterns on hardwoods such as beech, ash and maple.
“We were able to identify fungi growing in nature and analyze them in the laboratory to select those with the most favorable properties as wood finishers,” Hugh Morris, a scientist in Empa’s Applied Wood Materials lab in St.Gallen, explained in a press release. The pattern this creates has a particularly strong contrast in the wood. “Depending on the combination of fungal species, the lines are wild and impetuous or almost geometric,” said Empa. Hugh Morris is confident that the fungi could soon even be trained to write words in the wood.
With the Empa method, the wood is ready for processing within weeks. The choice of fungal species means that the raw material does not have to be dried for a long time beforehand in a costly or energy-intensive process.
Together with industry partner Koster Holzwelten AG in Arnegg SG, researchers are now in the process of implementing a sustainable production method. They intend to focus on the use of regional wood. “Beech wood is a hardwood that is common in Switzerland but appears uninteresting to furniture designers.” However, with marble wood from local beech trees it is possible to offer sought-after products on the Swiss timber market, which has an annual volume of around 3 billion Swiss francs.