The present study evaluates the mold fungal resistance of newly developed loose-fill thermal insulation materials made of wheat straw, corn stalk and water reed. Three distinct techniques for the processing of raw materials were used: mechanical crushing (Raw, ≤20 mm), thermo-mechanical pulping (TMP) with 4% NaOH and steam explosion pulping (SEP). An admixture of boric acid (8%) and tetraborate (7%) was applied to all processed substrates due to their anti-fungal properties. The fourth sample group was prepared from SEP substrates without added fungicide (SEP*) as control. Samples from all treatments were separately inoculated by five different fungal species and incubated in darkness for 28 days at 28 °C and RH > 90%. The highest resistance to the colonization of mold fungi was achieved by TMP and SEP processing, coupled with the addition of boric acid and tetraborate, where molds infested only around 35% to 40% of the inoculated sample area. The lowest mold fungi resistance was detected for the Raw and SEP* samples, each ~75%; they were affected by rich amount of accessible nutrients, suggesting that boric acid and tetraborate additives alone did not prevent mold fungal growth as effectively as in combination with TMP and SEP treatments. Together, the achieved fungal colonization scores after combined fungicide and pulping treatments are very promising for the application of tested renewable materials in the future development of thermal insulation products.
Keywords: corn stalk; lignocellulosic biomass; loose-fill thermal insulation materials; mold fungi resistance; reed; steam-exploded pulp; thermo-mechanical pulp; wheat straw.