Greensulate is the name of this insulation substitute. Back in 2007, the founders Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre met as Mechanical-Engineering students attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. They have come up with a low-cost, biomaterial that is looking very promising to replace the currently environmentally harmful styrofoams and plastics used in walls today. What makes this earthy technology so much different is the fact that it is grown, not created by chemicals and using up a lot of energy. It is very low maintenance as well, being able to grow at room temperature, in the dark, doesn’t require expensive manufacturing equipment, and can be tailored to different levels of strength and flexibility. “We like to call it low-tech biotech,” Bayer says.
They were given $16,000 in ’07 to fund their project they had labeled ‘Ecovative Design,’ and it proved to be worth it times about 45 what they received, as a year later they too home a $700,000 dollar prize from the PICNIC Green Challenge in Amsterdam. They are currently working on their first project of replacing the insulation in a Vermont school gym. Bayer and McIntyre are expecting to have completed all industrial certification and testing by the end of the year and have enlisted Jeff Brooks of the Timberline Panel Company to advise them on meeting American Society for Testing and Materials standards for building insulation. “If they get to the point where I think they’ll get,” he says, “there’s a chance there would be no reason to use conventional foam products.”
References
1. Info
2. ecovativedesign.com/greensulate/
3. Picture
Tags: environmentally friendly, Greensulation, insulation substitute, mushrooms
