Sustainability at Rensselaer

Rensselaer graduates (with dual degrees in mechanical engineering and PDI) Eben Bayer ’07 and Gavin McIntyre ’07 have developed an environmentally friendly organic insulation called Greensulate™. Created from waste agricultural materials, water, and mushrooms, the patent-pending insulation could replace conventional foam insulations, which are expensive to produce and harmful to the environment. The organic insulation is created by pouring a mixture of insulating particles, hydrogen peroxide, starch, and water into a panel enclosure, and injecting it with mushroom cells that digest the starch and produce a tightly meshed network of insulating particles and mycelium. The end result is an organic composite board that has a competitive R-Value—a measurement of resistance to heat flow — and can serve as a firewall. [via School of Engineering]