Student Experiment to Replace Plastic with Fungi Featured

By Stephen Shoemaker, May 9, 2017

Student Experiment to Replace Plastic with Fungi Featured

Fungus for the checkmate?

That’s the outcome Ithaca College senior Sam Donato hopes for. His experiment to grow chess pieces out of the mycelium fungus was recently featured in an article in The Ithacan, the college’s student newspaper. (“Student makes chess pieces out of fungi as plastic supplement.”)

Donato’s foray into mycology had him growing his fungal chessmen in 3-D printed molds. But the game pieces are merely pawns in a greater ambition — environmental sustainability.

“I focus on growing particular strains of fungus in a certain type of way in order to replace commercial products, specifically plastics,” Donato told The Ithacan.

Read the full article at theithacan.org.