Fractionation of fungal biomass for valorizing side streams from the forest indusrty

Important results from the project

Thanks to VINNOVA’s support, we gained a clearer understanding of the unit operations required to recover industrially relevant compounds from mycelium. The work allowed the valorisation not only of the protein fraction, but also of other fungal components such as cell-wall fibres and polymers. The resulting TEA model enables a structured comparison of our current process with established production routes that use different substrates, enabling a comparison in sustainability of the new process.

Expected long term effects

The main long-term effect is that we can explore new markets using mycelium, which Cirkulär already produces at a relevant scale. This provides a solid foundation for continued development and future industrial implementation of a process that can deliver higher-quality protein products as well as other industrially relevant polymers, thereby turning the core fermentation platform into a more versatile and scalable production system.

Approach and implementation

The project was primarily carried out as a collaboration between Cirkulär and LTH. In addition, contract research organisations were engaged to evaluate specific elements of the process and the analytical setup for selected products. The activities were well designed and enabled synergies across work packages. However, the process development took longer than expected, mainly due to the number of parameters that required optimisation and the breadth of unit operations needed across the process.

External links

www.cirkular.bio