Researchers explore mushrooms as potential replacements for semiconductor chips

An image of different mushrooms. (Pexels/Photo by Leeloo The First)

A new study has found that fungal networks inside mushrooms could potentially be a “promising” and environment-friendly alternative for microchips – used in processing and storing digital data.

Researchers from the Ohio State University recently discovered that shiitake mushrooms can be used as organic memristors, a type of data processor.

The study published in PLOS supported by the Honda Research Institute found that the mushrooms showed similar characteristics to semiconductors-based chips. These fungi could potentially be used to create environment and cost-friendly computing components.

John LaRocco, lead author of the study and a research scientist in psychiatry at Ohio State’s College of Medicine told CTVNews.ca that fungi have been known to have electrochemical properties since the 1970s.

“We were just curious (about) this one species of fungi that hadn’t quite been used as memristors and what frequencies they might operate at,” LaRocco said, adding that his co-authors, John Simonis and Justin Hill did most of the lab work.

Shiitake mushrooms were chosen and cultured for their non-toxic, edible, and radiation-resistant properties, according to him.

“Being able to develop microchips that mimic actual neural activity means you don’t need a lot of power for standby or when the machine isn’t being used,” LaRocco said in a news release.

Different parts of the mushrooms’ root (mycelium) have different properties, he explained. Some act as memristors, while others like wires or capacitors.

“Being able to make electronics that might otherwise require these for things like aerospace, for medical tech and all sorts of other applications, that’s a very attractive proposition for a whole range of fields,” LaRocco said.

“This has a lot of really interesting applications for aerospace wearable devices, because fungal sensors can detect a lot of metabolites through the skin relative to a lot of diseases and stuff, better than a lot of synthetic technologies can.”

Simonis explained that in addition to the electronics field, the research has multiple other implications like pathways into potentially improving the speed and amount of memory.

“The actual bar of usage is incredibly low, at least in terms of hardware costs,” he told CTVNews.ca.

“A major advantage of our specific memory series is (that) we used both readily available fungi, specifically in the case of shiitake mycelia, and fungi that is also generally safe to eat and typically nontoxic.”

Additionally, the fungal samples were “surprisingly” durable, Simonis explained. They would rehydrate and operate almost all full efficiency after being dehydrated for an extended period, which is a typical way of preserving organic material, he added.

“It’s also generally fairly easy to store, fairly easy to reuse and fairly durable for a long, extended period,” Simonis said.

Meanwhile, LaRocco said another reason for this research is the fact that the mushrooms are very lightweight and flexible, which makes them useful for satellites, space telescopes and radiation resistance.

“Another key thing is that (it) needs no rare earths,” he said. “It just needs a bunch of sawdust and a few electrical connections.”

The team, including co-author Ruben Petreaca, discovered that when used as a RAM (Random Access Memory) – the device’s working memory, for two months, mushroom memristor was able to switch between electrical states with nearly 90 per cent accuracy.

Qudsia Tahmina, another co-author of the study and an associate professor in electrical and computer engineering at Ohio State told CTVNews.ca that this is the future direction.

“There’s more research that warrants the future studies about storage,” Tahmina said. “Reducing them to the size of your cell phone or a laptop, for example, for storage purposes, because at the end of the day, we are talking about memory stores, being able to store information.”