Student projects

The Sustainable Materials Laboratory welcomes motivated students for master and semester projects. 

Master projects

Self-assembly of cellulose nanocrystals 

Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs), a fundamental building block of nature, spontaneously self-assemble into a liquid crystalline phase, with the emergence of this ordered phase occurring at a critical CNC concentration.

These self-assembling CNCs can be dried to produce structure films that selectively reflect light to give a colorful and iridescent effect analogous to the pigment-free structure colors found in nature. 

The aim of this project is to study how key additives effect liquid crystalline properties suspension and to determine the upper limit of these additives that can be tolerated in the context of CNC self-assembly. The additives themselves are selected to bring to the CNCs properties, such as flexibility in the dry state, that are otherwise lacking.

The candidate will gain experience in nanomaterial processing, and characterization, including various microscopies, rheology, zeta potential, etc., 

I am looking for a dedicated master’s student to begin this project in the summer or fall  of 2024. Interested candidates are directed to send a cv and statement of interest directly to Prof. Tiffany Abitbol ([email protected]). The ideal candidate will have previous experience with nanomaterial dispersion and characterization.

Please put the title of the project as the subject of your email

 

 

Semester projects

Experimental design for exopolysaccharides

Schizophyllan is a neutral exopolysaccharide produced during submerged fermentation of Schizophyllum Commune, and is highly attractive due to its high-value pharmaceutical applications. Unfortunately, the field of application is limited due to its low production rate, and difficulty in downstream processes. Therefore, finding an efficient optimization method for schizophyllan production and extraction processes seems crucial.

Schizophyllan production is sensitive to different growth conditions, like air humidity, temperature, time, stressors, and nutritional components. In this regard, Design of Experiments (DOE) can be an attractive method, since it identifies critical parameters in multi-variate systems. Developing a DOE algorithm will therefore help to find the optimal fermentation conditions while minimizing experimental costs.

In this project, we are looking for (i) a student who will develop and optimize DOE algorithms, and (ii) another student willing to experimentally (e.g. schizophyllan extraction, compositional analysis and rheological testing) to confirm the predictions.

The work will be supervised by Inyoung Yonah Lee and Prof. Tiffany Abitbol and will take place at SML laboratories. Envisaged start date is September 2024. Interested candidates are directed to send a cv and statement of interest directly to Inyoung Lee ([email protected]) with Prof. Tiffany Abitbol ([email protected]) in ‘cc.

Mycelium barriers for packaging

The packaging industry is the largest contributor to plastic waste production, with food packaging being a major sector due to its single use. While some biodegradable materials have material properties comparable to conventional petrochemical packaging, they often lack the essential barrier properties to replace food packaging.

Mycelium is the network of the root-like structure of filamentous fungi, called hyphae, and it plays several important roles in nature. For example, mycelium can break down lignocellulosic biomass (e.g. cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin) into smaller compounds that are easier for plants to absorb as nutrients. It also uptakes contaminants, such as heavy metals and toxic compounds, into the cell wall (mycoremediation), helping to decontaminate the soil and water.

In this semester project, a student will explore how the properties and functionalities of mycelium-based material can be tailored using a straightforward approach. The student will gain experience in working with biological samples, fermentation, and characterization techniques.

We are looking for a master’s intern, to begin this project in the Fall of 2024. Interested candidates are directed to send a cv and statement of interest directly to Yuki Hayashi ([email protected]) with Prof. Tiffany Abitbol ([email protected]) in ‘cc.

Please put the title of the project as the subject of your email.

 

 

Mycelium-textile composite materials

Mycelium-based materials are increasingly researched as a green material with potential in a wide range of applications, including as a source of non-animal chitosan, or in composite materials such as packaging, non-animal leathers, and insulation. The promise of these materials is that they offer a new way to grow materials from living organisms, in many cases acting as a carbon sink by sequestering carbon from lignocellulose waste streams that might otherwise be incinerated. Even if grown on a synthetic diet, these materials avoid much of the environmental harm caused by animal husbandry and the petroleum industry, offering meaningful alternatives to many of the products of these industries.

Simply, mycelium materials are grown from fungi provided with the nutritional requirements for growth. As mentioned, often the nutrition is sourced from lignocellulose waste streams, mimicking the role of wood-degrading fungi in nature, which can break down complex substrates into smaller nutrients that can then be ingested by the fungi. Indeed, this mechanism, whereby solid nutrition is both broken down and merged into a cohesive mass through a growing and interconnected filamentous mycelium network is the phenomenon that underpins all myco-composites, whether produced by solid or submerged fermentation.

In the Sustainable Materials Laboratory, we aim to explore how solid nutrition can be used to tailor the properties of the resulting myco-composites, indeed not only through the inclusion of non-fungal solid matter (e.g., lignocellulose) but by modifying the properties of the mycelium filaments themselves. This “solid nutrition” can be in the form of colloidal nanoparticles or larger macroscopic fragments, with a range of general properties dictated by their origin and processing. At SML, we ask how the properties of myco-materials can be tailored based on the source of nutrition and the extent to which it is digested (or not), while at the same time aiming to produce functional materials based on the interplay between the fungi and its environment of growth.

In this project, a collaboration with Glatfelter, we aim to better understand how fungi grow on technical fabric scaffolds with different compositions (cellulosic, conventional polymers) and architectures (e.g., density), studying the impact of scaffold characteristics on the grown mycelium. The project will contribute to a view of how scaffold properties translate into the properties of the grown material, so that we can eventually begin to optimize for the intended application sphere(s).

We are looking for a student, either a master’s student or a master’s intern, to begin this project in the Fall of 2024. Interested candidates are directed to send a cv and statement of interest directly to Prof. Tiffany Abitbol ([email protected]).

Please put the title of the project as the subject of your email.