SE2030201A1 - Method for producing a woven or non-woven fabric - Google Patents

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to a method for producing a woven or non-woven fabric and comprising the following steps: providing (1) an amount of food waste material; adding (2) a filamentous fungus to said food waste material; and cultivating (3) said filamentous fungus for obtaining a fungal biomass. Furthermore, the method comprises a further step of treating said fungal biomass to extract fibrous cell wall material for producing said nonwoven fabric or for providing a yarn in order to produce said woven fabric. The disclosure also relates to a woven or nonwoven fabric as produced by means of the above-mentioned method.

Description

METHOD FOR PRODUCING A WOVEN OR NON-WOVEN FABRIC TECHNICAL FIELD The disclosure relates to a method for producing a woven or non-woven fabric andcomprising the following steps: providing an amount of food waste material; adding afilamentous fungus to said food waste material; and cultivating said filamentous fungus forobtaining a fungal biomass.

The disclosure also relates to a woven or non-woven fabric produced by means of theabove-mentioned method.

BACKGROUND Today, there are environmental concerns related to the global production of textiles. lnparticular, it is known that the global textile industry releases an increasing amount ofharmful chemical substances into the environment, thereby causing pollution of air andwater. Also, the textile industry has a high consumption of water and energy, and is alsoresponsible for producing a high amount of solid waste material. ln particular, it is knownthat cotton is the most important non-petroleum based fabric for textiles and garments andalso that cotton is a major cause of the above-mentioned disadvantages.

Furthermore, the use of petrochemically based textiles, such as the release of micro-plastics, has led to serious environmental concerns.

Moreover, textiles are generally difficult to recycle. For this reason, renewable fibers whichcan undergo biological recycling are highly demanded in the textile industry. ln order to approach the above-mentioned problems, a number of solutions have beensuggested. For example, more sustainable solutions involving less water and a lowerenergy consumption have been developed. Also, a use of more sustainable raw materialssuch as organic cotton and wool has been suggested. Furthermore, other factors such asrecycling of raw materials, a decreased use of harmful chemicals, i.e. dyes and coatings,and also an improved social responsibility towards employees have led to a decrease inthe environmental concerns related to the textile industry.

A further improvement of the production of textiles relates to the development ofalternative types of fibers. ln fact, the global textile production keeps growing andreplacement of textiles based on cotton and petrochemicals with sustainable bio-basedtextiles will have a profound environmental impact. The majority of the natural alternativesthat have been suggested are based on cellulose, which is widely available in|ignoce||ulosic materials. Regenerated cellulose fibers are already in the market thoughthe research is still going on for development of cellulose fibers and textile with higherperformance and more sustainable production processes.

Besides cellulose, other biopolymers have been also introduced for production of textiles.Chitin and chitosan are two examples of biopolymers which are possible to use forproduction of textiles. Chitin is the second most abundant biopolymer in the world aftercellulose. Commercially, chitin is produced from the wastes of shellfish industry. Chitosanis the deacetylated derivative of chitin which is produced by a harsh chemicaldeacetylation process. However, due to recalcitrance of |ignoce||ulosic materials,extraction of chitin and chitosan is easier and less energy consuming compared to the process of cellulose purification from |ignoce||ulosic materials.

The conventional fibers are either arranged directly into a non-woven fabric or into a yarnwhich is used for production of woven fabric, e.g. by weaving. Even though woven fabricsdominate the majority of textile market, non-woven fabrics have a simpler and lessexpensive production process. Therefore, they are interesting options for daily useproducts such as textiles used in hygiene, medicine, and households. ln summary, a general problem which is present in the field of textile production relates tothe occurrence of certain environmental problems and challenges. For this reason, there is a demand for new solutions which solve these problems.

With regard to previously known technology, it should be noted that the patent documentCN 105316869 teaches a method for producing a non-woven fabric based on chitosanand being used as a wound dressing. The method in question uses chitosan fiber filaments which a used in a wet spinning process for producing a non-woven fabric.

Furthermore, the document US 2014/027938 teaches a process for extracting chitin froma chitinous biomass. Chitin fibers which are obtained by means of the process can beused for different articles.

Consequently, it is known to use alternative types of fibers for producing both woven andnonwoven fabric. However, there is a need for further improvements within this field oftechnology. ln particular, there is an increasing requirement to provide sustainablesolutions invo|ving new textile materials, in particular new types of textile fibers, whichhave less negative impact on the environment while still having comparable or even better performance as compared with today's solution. ln summary, there is a need for further improvements within the above-mentioned field of technology.

SUMMARY ln accordance with this disclosure, there is provided a process for producing a wovenfabric, alternatively a process for producing a nonwoven fabric, having a purpose ofsolving the above-mentioned problems related to the prior art within this field of technology. ln particular, there is a demand to satisfy the need within the textile industry for moresustainable and environmentally friendly yarns, textiles and fabrics, and also moreenvironmentally friendly processes for manufacturing such textiles. ln accordance with the disclosure, the above-mentioned purpose is obtained by means ofa method for producing a woven or non-woven fabric and comprising the following steps:providing an amount of food waste material; adding a filamentous fungus to said foodwaste material; and cultivating said filamentous fungus for obtaining a fungal biomass.The method comprises a further step of treating said fungal biomass to extract fibrous cellwall material for producing said nonwoven fabric or for providing a yarn in order to produce said woven fabric.

According to the disclosure, an important advantage is provided through the fact that itfulfills the object of reducing several environmental concerns. l\/lore precisely, fibers basedon fungal material can be used for textile production, both as regards production ofnonwoven fabrics and also for production of yarn which as such can be used for wovenfabrics. ln particular, this disclosure describes how a wet spinning technique can be usedfor producing yarn from fungal cell wall fiber material and how a wet laid technique can be used for producing nonwoven fabric.

The fungi which is used will be grown on bread waste or a corresponding suitable foodwaste substance. Using such waste material for production of textiles is a new approachto address the different environmental and economic concerns regarding this largevolume of waste in the society.

A further advantage of the disclosure is that it constitutes a process for manufacturingfungal-based textiles from fungal cell wall material which can be performed using existinginfrastructure of textile and paper industries. The fungal fibers are renewable andbiocompatible. l\/loreover, fungal fibers will have good performance for replacement ofcommercial fibers used especially in apparel, and medical textile applications.

Furthermore, growing of fungi on food waste will contribute to reducing the carbonfootprint of this waste, which is othen/vise a huge source of greenhouse gas emission.Also, the fungal textiles can substitute the fossil based textiles which are a major sourceof environmental pollution. The fungal textile can also address the shortage of cotton andthe conflicts associated with its unlimited cultivation. Using of the renewable fungal basedtextiles will also potentially open up opportunities for development of biological recyclingmethods. ln summary, fungal-based textiles produced in accordance with the disclosureare good candidates to reduce the pollutions generated by today's textile industry.

Generally, this disclosure is directed to processes for creating a sustainable strategy forre-using food waste for production of a new generation of sustainable textiles as areplacement for cotton and synthetic textiles.

According to an embodiment, said woven fabric can be produced by means of thefollowing additional steps: treating said fungal biomass so as to remove fungal proteinsfrom the fungal biomass and for obtaining a fungal cell wall material consisting of fibrouspolymers; treating said cell wall material so as to obtain a fungal hydrogel; treating saidfungal hydrogel so as to prepare for a wet spinning step; and wet spinning of said fungalhydrogel into a yarn.

According to an embodiment, the method comprises a step of weaving the yarn into said woven fabric.

According to an embodiment, said nonwoven fabric may be produced by means of thefollowing additional steps: treating said fungal biomass to obtain a fibrous fungal material;treating said fibrous fungal material so as to prepare for a wet laid process; and carryingout a wet laid process.

According to an embodiment, said food waste material can be constituted by bread waste or fruit waste.

According to an embodiment, said filamentous fungi can be of the type ascomycetes,zygomycetes or corresponding types of fungus.

According to an embodiment, the step of cultivating said filamentous fungus to obtainfungal biomass may comprise an enzymatic hydrolysis step.

According to an embodiment, the step of cultivating said fungal material may be carriedout at an initial pH of 5-6 and with a cultivation time of 12-48 hours.

According to an embodiment, the step of treating the fungal biomass to extract fibrous cellmaterial may comprise an enzymatic, and/or alkali and/or acid treatment.

According to an embodiment, bleaching may be carried out of the fungal fibers before spinning of yarn and/or formation of nonwoven fabric.

According to an embodiment, the step of treating said fungal cell wall material may becarried out with a mechanical grinding process by means of a homogenizer or an ultra fine friction grinder, for obtaining a fungal hydrogel.

According to an embodiment, a grinding process may be introduced in order to producefungal nanofibers.

According to an embodiment, a step of crosslinking of the fungal biopolymers can becarried out, to improve the water resistance of fungal fabric, using sulfuric acid, and/orgenipin and/or heat crosslinking when adipic acid and citric acids are used.

According to the disclosure, there is also provided a fabric as produced by means of amethod as defined above.

According to an embodiment, said fabric can be constituted by a wound healing orpersonal hygiene fabric.

Further advantages and advantageous features of the disclosure are disclosed in thefollowing description and in the dependent claims. ln the context of the present disclosure, the term "cultivating" is used for describing aprocess involving mixing food waste with water and add fungi to this mixture and thenallowing fungal growth at a given pH range, during a given time and with a temperature and aeration.

Furthermore, the term “fungal biomass” is used for describing an amount of fungal cellswhich contain biopolymers, resulting from a process of cultivating the fungal material andbeing used for extracting fibrous cell wall material.

Furthermore, the term “fungal hydrogel” is used for describing an amount of fungal cellwall material, which is generally free from proteins and lipids and can hold approximately10-100 grams of water per gram of its weight.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURESThe disclosure will be described in greater detail below with reference to the figuresshown in the appended drawings.

Figure 1 is a schematical flowchart showing a process for producing a fungalmonofilament yarn which can be used for preparation of woven fabrics,in accordance with this disclosure; and Figure 2 is a schematical flowchart showing a process for producing nonwoven fabrics, in accordance with the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Different aspects of the present disclosure will be described more fully hereinafter withreference to the enclosed drawings. The disclosure can be realized in many differentforms and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiments below.

Generally, the disclosure is based on a process which can be used for producing yarnsand both nonwoven and woven textiles and which is based on certain common processsteps in which fungus, i.e. a certain amount of fungal spores, is added to food waste andthen allowed to grow so as to form a fungal biomass. More precisely, the disclosure isbased on a process in which food waste, for example in the form of bread waste, is usedas a base substance to which the fungal material is added and then cultivated. Thecultivated fungi is developed into a fungal biomass which is used to extract fibrous cellwall material from the fungi. As will be described in detail below, the extracted cell wallmaterial can subsequently be used either for producing a nonwoven fabric or for spinninginto a yarn which can be used for producing a woven fabric. The nonwoven fabric canalso be made directly from the fungal biomass.

The disclosure relates to a method for producing a woven fabric or non-wovenfabric/bioplastic film and comprising the following steps: providing an amount of foodwaste material; and growing a filamentous fungi in said food waster to get a fibrous fungal biomass.

With initial reference to Fig. 1, there is shown a flowchart of a process for producing ayarn in accordance with the principles of the disclosure. ln a first step, as indicated with reference numeral 1 in Fig. 1, there is provided an amountof food waste. According to an embodiment, bread waste is suitable to be used in thisstep. However, many other types of food waste are suitable for this purpose, for examplefruit waste and especially rejected fruits and residues from fruit resulting from a pressingprocess in e.g. juice production are suitable alternatives.ln the following, however, therewill be described various embodiments using food waste material in the form of breadwaste, which is particularly suitable since it is available in large amounts as waste fromfood stores and restaurants and also in the form of household waste.

Reference numeral 2 in Figure 1 indicates a step of adding fungal material, i.e. alsoreferred to as fungus or fungal spores, to the food waste. According to an embodiment,filamentous fungus are used in this step. ln particular, fungus which is constituted by thetwo sub-groups of zygomycetes and ascomycetes are suitable for this purpose and sincethey cover a very wide range of fungal strains.

According to what is previously known as such, ascomycetes and zygomycetes havebeen used for different purposes including food production. The cell wall structure of thesetwo groups of fungi contains chitin-glucan and chitin-chitosan, respectively. lndeed, thecell wall structure of zygomycetes fungi is the only natural source of chitosan, which canotherwise be produced by chemical deacetylation of shellfish chitin. Furthermore, the cellwalls of the ascomycetes fungi contain chitin.

The type and composition of fibrous biopolymers in the fungal cell wall depend on the typeof the fungi as well as the cultivation conditions.

According to an embodiment of this disclosure, generally regarded as safe strains of thezygomycetes and ascomycetes fungi are employed for production of nonwoven or wovenfabrics. This will open up the opportunity for a future application of the fungal proteins thatare a byproduct of the fungal textile production for food or feed applications.

Bread is first mixed with water and then the fungi is added to the bread-water mixture, astep for cultivating the fungi is then performed (reference numeral 3 in Figure 1).

According to an embodiment, the bread waste can be grinded, i.e. in a grinding process,and used directly for cultivation of fungi in step 3. ln order to reduce the amount of the unconsumed bread particles, containinglignocellulosic materials, which is left in the final obtained fungal biomass, bread can alsobe subjected to an enzymatic hydrolysis step. Amylase and protease can be used forbread hydrolysis.

The soluble hydrolyzed bread (bread hydrolysate) can be separated from insolublefraction through filtration. The bread hydrolysate which together with hydrolyzed starchcontains some minerals and proteins necessary for microbial growth can be used forcultivation of the fungi. A supplementary nitrogen source such as ammonium sulfate,sodium nitrate, or yeast extract can be added to the bread hydrolysate to improve thefungal growth. ln summary, by means of the cultivation step 3, a conversion of bread waste into a fungalbiomass is obtained.

The next step in the process according to Figure 1 (see reference numeral 4) is atreatment of the fungal biomass which has been produced as a result of the cultivation ofthe fungi in the bread waste or other types of food waste. More precisely, this treatmentstep 4 is intended for removing proteins and |ipids in the fungal biomass, in preparation forsubsequent steps, see reference numeral 5.

Furthermore, the fungal strains which are suitably used do not require any enzymatichydrolysis using amylase. lnstead, the strains are able to consume the bread directly. Thismeans that, according to an embodiment, bread is mixed with water and used for thefungal fermentation. A cultivation time of 12-48 hours is suitable. The best breadconcentration is giving a high yield of fungal biomass. No supplementary materials areneeded since the fungus grows well on bread.

After removal of the proteins and |ipids, the fungal cell wall material is separated from theobtained fungal biomass. To this end, the fungal biomass can be subjected to differentextraction methods including enzymatic (e.g., protease and lipase), alkali (e.g., sodiumhydroxide). The goal is separation of the cell wall from other materials inside the cell suchas proteins and |ipids.

According to an embodiment intended for production of a woven textile material, it hasbeen noted that alkali treatment is suitable. The fungi is treated in sodium hydroxidesolution, with a concentration of 0,1-0,5 l\/I at 121 ° C for 20 minutes. According to a furtherembodiment, enzymatic treatment with protease followed by an alkali treatment can alsobe considered.

The fungal cell wall material comprising fibrous biopolymers, i.e. polymeric biomolecules,will remain after the chosen treatment 4, i.e. for example alkali or enzyme treatment. Thefungal cell wall material can also be treated with 0.1 -0.5% sulfuric acid at roomtemperature for 30 min followed by washing the material with 0.1 M sodium hydroxide.The fungal cell wall material is finally washed with water to remove the alkali and enzyme residues. lf the bread is directly used for cultivation of the fungi without enzymatic hydrolysis ofbread, trace amounts of seeds (coming from bread) may remain in the fungi. They arelignocelluloses materials not used by fungi. This can be a challenging issue for thespinning. This problem can be solved using the ultrafine super mass collider since those particles are broken to much smaller particles in this machine, maybe to cellulosenanofibers resulting in a very homogenous fungal hydrogel. lf large amount of the breadresidues remain in the fungal biomass the lignin part of bread residue may causeproblems in the process of yarn and nonwoven production and negatively impact theproperties of the final products. To solve this, a bleaching step may be necessary toremove the bread residues, containing lignin, from the fungal fibers before spinning ofyarn and formation of nonwoven textiles. Bleaching can be performed using hydrogenperoxide or sodium chlorite. An antifoam can be used to control foaming of the materialsduring the bleaching.

As shown with reference numeral 6 in Figure 1, there will be a treatment of the fungal cellwall material to form a hydrogel. More precisely, a suitable acid such as lactic acid, aceticacid, adipic acid, or citric acid will be added to the cell wall material. Upon addition of theacid, a fungal hydrogel is formed.

As a result of the treatment 6 of the cell wall material, a fungal hydrogel is obtained. Thestability and strength of this gel is affected significantly by the preparation conditions. lnprinciple, this gel can be subjected directly to a wet spinning process to make yarn.However, a suitable treatment of the hydrogel, as indicated with reference numeral 7 inFigure 1, will improve the characteristics of the yarn obtained.

According to an embodiment, a mechanical grinding is performed during the step 7. ln thismanner, the gel characteristics can be improved. For the mechanical grinding, a simplehomogenizer, an ultrasonic homogenizer and an ultra-fine friction grinder called supermass colloider are suitable to use. Addition of acid can also be performed after thegrinding step. ln the case that an ultra-fine super mass colloider is used, the cell wall material is crushedbetween two grinding stones in this machine and fibrilated. An ultrasonic homogenizer isalso a suitable alternative for grinding the fungal cell wall material.

After mechanical treatment of the hydrogel, a centrifugation step is suitably performed.This is done in a special centrifugation tubes containing filter. The pore size of the filters isin a way that the cell wall biopolymers cannot pass through the filter (if they have beendissolved, chitosan which is available in cell wall of fungi is soluble in acids). ln otherwords, the centrifugation only removes the water from the hydrogel. The final 11 concentration of the hydrogel is around 3-1 0%. This is subjected to a spinning processand the fungal hydrogel is injected through a spinneret to a coagulation bath. lt has been noted that the fungal cell wall hydrogel can be subjected directly to wetspinning to prepare yarn. ln other words, instead of dissolution of the fungal biopolymersin relevant solvents, their gelling behavior is used to make the spinning process possible.ln this process, there will be used fungal strains from zygomycetes and ascomycetesgroups which correspond to cell wall material containing chitin-chitosan and chitin-glucan,respectively.

With reference to reference numeral 8 in Figure 1, a wet spinning process will beperformed. According to an embodiment, this will be carried out through the injection ofcell wall gel (using a spinneret) into a non-solvent material such as acetone or ethanol orisopropanol to form the yarn. The cell wall hydrogel contains micro-scale chitin-chitosan orchitin-glucan fibers. The cell wall hydrogel will be transferred into a syringe and ejected tothrough a syringe pump with the syringe tip submerged in a coagulation bath. The spunfiber can be treated with sulfuric acid, genipin, or other crosslinking agents in order tocrosslink the fungal chitosan and improve the water resistance of the final fibers. Thespun fiber is removed from the coagulation bath and dried under stretching. A heattreatment can also be applied on the dried yarn for crosslinking of chitosan.

Spinning of the biopolymers to fibers, by controlling the orientation of molecules, creates astrong and durable yarn which is useful for many applications. The yarns are thenprocessed to woven fabrics.

Wet spinning is usually used for production of fibers from polymers that cannot melt e.g.,cellulose, chitin, and chitosan. With regard to the present disclosure, it should be notedthat chitin and chitosan fibers have excellent properties such as high strength andflexibility, biocompatibility, antibacterial effect, and wound healing acceleration properties.

As shown with reference numeral 9 in Figure 1, the yarn which is obtained by means ofthe wet spinning step 8 can subsequently be woven into a fabric. A process for weaving ayarn of fibres into a fabric is well known as such, and for this reason such a process is notdescribed in detail here. 12 ln summary, a process for producing a woven fabric has now been described. Thedisclosure relates generally to a method for producing a woven or non-woven fabric whichcomprises certain steps. Initially, an amount of food waste material is provided andfilamentous fungus is added to the food waste material. Next, the filamentous fungus iscultivated so as to obtain a fungal biomass. ln other words, there is provided a process ofgrowing filamentous fungus on the food waste. Also, the fungal biomass is processed in a suitable manner to produce yarn in order to produce a woven fabric.

With reference to Figure 2, a further embodiment will now be described in which themethod according to the disclosure can be adapted for producing a nonwoven fabric. Thefirst method steps shown in Figure 2, i.e. providing food waste (reference numeral 1),adding fungi (reference numeral 2), cultivating fungi (reference numeral 3), treating afungal biomass (reference numeral 4) and removing fungal proteins (reference numeral5), generally corresponds to the process of producing a woven material, as describedabove with reference to Figure 1. lt should be noted that for the step of treating the fungal biomass (4) and removing fungalproteins (5) for nonwoven material, it is possible to omit the step of removing fungalproteins and use the fungal biomass directly for production of nonwoven material. ln order to produce nonwoven fabrics in accordance with the principles of this disclosure,a wet laid process is used. According to the embodiment, a mechanical treatment usingan ultra fine grinder is used for nonwoven. The number of passes of the material over thegrinder is less here compare to what needed for making a good hydrogel for spinning.Also, it is not necessary to add any acid. Also, it is not necessary with a centrifugationprocess since the water is removed by filtration upon formation of the fabric.

Traditionally, nonwoven fabrics are formed by direct bonding of randomly oriented fibersby e.g., chemical, mechanical, and heat treatments. Nonwoven cellulosic fabrics can beproduced from cellulose pulp using a modified paper machine in a process called wet laidprocess. ln this process cellulose fibers, from lignocellulosic materials, are suspended inwater and applied to a surface. The nonwoven fabric is then formed by removing the water.

The nonwoven fabrics can be formed from fungal biomass, alkali treated fungal biomassor enzyme treated fungal biomass. The fungal materials can be directly used in wet laid 13 process to form sheet which are then dried to form non-woven sheets. The fungal materialcan also be mixed with other fibers such as PLA or cellulose fibers and then subjected tothe wet laid process. A bleaching step can also be performed before the wet laid toremove the lignin particles remaining from bread. Bleaching will improve the quality of the nonwoven sheets.

The step of producing a nonwoven fabric during the wet laid process is indicated with reference numeral 10 in Figure 2.

The present disclosure is based on the insight that fungal cell wall material can besubjected to a wet laid process similar to the process of paper production from cellulosepulp. According to embodiment, cell wall material of both types of fungal strains, i.e.ascomycetes or zygomycetes, can be used for this process.

During the nonwoven process, a filtration unit can be employed to prepare the nonwovenmaterial from fungal cell wall. The pulp like fungal cell wall material is mixed with water tocreate a cell wall suspension. The amount of water is adjusted to reach a final grammageof the non-woven sheets to be in the magnitude of 10-250 g/m2 which is suitable forcommercial non-woven textiles. The water is removed from the suspension to form asheet. A cold and/or hot pressing can beemployed for pre-drying the obtained sheet. Thesheet is then dried at ambient conditions.

The disclosure is based on a principle that fungal fibers can be used for textile production.The cell wall of filamentous fungi which makes 20-30% of the cells contains differentfibrous biopolymers such as chitin, chitosan, and glucans. These materials arebiocompatible, biodegradable, and non-toxic which are ideal characteristics for materialsused in textiles. Also, unlike naturally occurring cellulosic fibers production of fungal fibersdoes not require agricultural lands and is independent of local climates. Fungi can growquickly on low cost substrates e.g. food and agricultural wastes.

According to further embodiments of the disclosure, a method for producing a fabric maycomprise a food waste treatment step as: 1 - a grinding step to reduce the size of said food waste;2 - mixing of food waste with water to a concentration of 1-8%;3 - an enzymatic hydrolysis step; 14 4 - a filtration step to remove insoluble parts of food waste.

Results have shown that the two last steps (3 and 4) mentioned above, are not obligatorybut can be included in order to further improve the properties of textiles. This means thatthe process can be carried out without them but we get textiles with better quality by usingthose steps.

Furthermore, and depending on how the fungal growing is done, the type of the treatmentis determined. As regards yarn, and if steps 3 and 4 as mentioned are not carried out,then it would be suitable to include both enzymatic and alkali. When doing steps 3 and 4,only alkali is enough.

Furthermore, acid treatment will, in both cases, improve spinning. Suitably, the acid usedhere is di|ute sulphuric acid solution, which will remove the phosphates from a cell wallstructure leaving chitin and chitosan.

As regards non-woven fabric, it should be noted that such fabric can suitably be made by: 1 - only mechanical treatment;2 - mechanical treatment and enzymatic treatment;3 - mechanical treatment and alkali; or a combination of steps 2 and 3.

To get hydrogel for a yarn, it is suitable with a mechanical treatment together with acidtreatment. The acid to be used is suitably lactic acid, acetic acid, citric acid or adipic acid.Addition of acid can be done before or after a mechanical grinding. Also, for non-woven,addition of acid is not needed.

The yield of the process will be dependent on the cultivation conditions as well as textileproduction process. Furthermore, the fungal fibers are not the only valuable ingredients ofthe fungal cells. Another valuable material is fungal protein, also known as myco-protein,which represents around 50% of the fungal cell dry weight. There is a potential of fungalproteins for being used as a food or feed source. ln other words, fungal proteins can beobtained as a useful byproduct of the fungal textiles production. Fungal proteins can berecovered during the process of preparation of fungal cell wall material.

The disclosure is not limited to the embodiments described above but can be varied withinthe scope of the appended claims.

Claims (15)

1. A method for producing a woven or non-woven fabric and comprising the followingsteps: - providing (1) an amount of food waste material; - adding (2) a filamentous fungus to said food waste material; and - cultivating (3) said filamentous fungus for obtaining a fungal biomass; characterized in that said method comprises a further step of: - treating (4) said fungal biomass to extract fibrous cell wall material for producing said nonwoven fabric or for providing a yarn in order to produce said woven fabric.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein said woven fabric is produced by means ofthe following additional steps: - treating (4) said fungal biomass so as to remove (5) fungal proteins from the fungalbiomass and for obtaining a fungal cell wall material consisting of fibrous polymers; - treating (6) said cell wall material so as to obtain a fungal hydrogel; - treating (7) said fungal hydrogel so as to prepare for a wet spinning step; and - wet spinning (8) of said fungal hydrogel into a yarn.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein said method comprises the following step:- weaving (9) the yarn into said woven fabric.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein said nonwoven fabric is produced by meansof the following additional steps: - treating (6) said cell wall material so as to obtain a fungal hydrogel; - treating (7) said fungal hydrogel so as to prepare for a wet laid process; and - carrying out (10) a wet laid process.

5. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein said food wastematerial is constituted by bread waste or fruit waste.

6. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein said filamentousfungi is of the type ascomycetes, zygomycetes or corresponding types of fungus.

7. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, comprising:- cultivating (3) said fungi on food waste comprises an enzymatic hydrolysis step.

8. The method according to of the preceding claims, comprising:- cultivating (3) said fungal material at an initial pH of approximately 5-6 and with acultivation time of 12-48 hours.

9. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein:- said step of treating (4) the fungal biomass to extract fibrous cell material comprises anenzymatic, and/or alkali and/or acid treatment.

10. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein- bleaching is carried out of the fungal fibers before spinning of yarn and/or formation of nonwoven fabric.

11. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, further comprising:- treating (6) said fungal cell wall material with a mechanical grinding process by means ofa homogenizer or a ultra-fine friction grinder, for obtaining a fungal hydrogel.

12. The method according to claim 9 or 10, further comprising:- introducing a grinding process in order to produce fungal nanofibers.

13. The method according to any one of the preceding claims; further comprising: - a step of crosslinking of the fungal biopolymers, to improve the water resistanceof fungal fabric, using sulfuric acid, and/or genipin and/or heat crosslinking when adipicacid and citric acids are used.

14. A fabric as produced by means of the method in accordance with any of claim 1-13.

15. A fabric according to claim 14, wherein said fabric is constituted by a wound healing orpersonal hygiene fabric.