Study Finds A New Use For Rotten Wood Floors: Electricity

A white-rot fungus (Ganoderma applanatum) may hold the key to energy-producing wood floors.Wood floor pros walk across some nasty wood floors in their day-to-day work, and while many of the most rotten wood floors are destined for the landfill, new research has uncovered another potential use—electricity.

A group of researchers in Zurich, Switzerland, added a white-rot fungus (Ganoderma applanatum) to balsa wood to test its response to the piezoelectric effect—an effect produced when applying force to wood in order to create an electric charge, New Scientist reports.

After some weeks, the fungus broke down the hemicellulose and lignin inside the wood and lowered its weight by about half; the result was an electric charge 55 times higher than when the wood was not rotted.

The researchers wrapped a portion of the rotted wood in a wooden veneer as a model “energy floor” to power an LED. The volume of electricity produced was a mere 0.85 volts from one cube of spoiled wood 15 millimeters across, according to the report, but the charge could be enough to one day power remote sensors to detect if someone has fallen down on the floor. They discovered that six weeks of treatment with the fungus was enough to create a wood that was compressible enough to generate more electricity from the “pressing and releasing action” without losing its strength.

Researchers said the findings were an important first step in showing the potential for much larger energy-generating wood floors with a much greater energy output. The group is in talks with companies about commercializing an energy wood product, according to the report.

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