Scientists unearth the secrets of mushroom compost
Mushrooms are big business. More than 1 million tonnes are grown in the European Union each year, producing a healthy, low-fat, high protein food that’s also rich in minerals and vitamins.
But there is a downside. Every tonne of mushrooms generates three tonnes of compost – a mixture of chicken litter, straw, gypsum and peat.
Getting rid of the compost has become a major logistic and economic challenge for the growers, one that is now the focus of a European research project – BioRescue. (H2020).
Spain’s National Renewable Energy Centre, CENER, in Pamplona is leading the research in a bid to transform the used mushroom compost into fertilisers and biodegradable nano-carriers for drugs.
The Spanish scientists have already successfully demonstrated that they can produce biopesticides.
CENER Biologist Irantzu Alegría says biopesticides have many advantages over conventional treatments.
“With biopesticides you attack specific species of diseases, whereas with traditional insecticides you eliminate a large part of the insects that are in the field.”
Could Butanol be our new alternative to fossil fuels?
Could Biobutanol be an alternative to replace existing fossil fuels? EURONEWS explores this question presenting ButaNexT (Next Generation Butanol) a European H2020 Project where CENER has a relevant role in the integration and scale up of the process in the Biorefinery and Bioenergy Centre (BIO2C).
