Anyone who’s ever tucked into a full English breakfast knows the vital importance of mushrooms in keeping the baked beans from touching the bacon. Now scientists at Oxford University have discovered that mushrooms can do a whole lot more than provide one of your five daily portions of fruit and veg. They’ve succeeded in using fungus to create a fuel cell that can run a digital watch – and that could soon power mobile phones, cameras and even cars.

Going green
Fuel cells are the leading candidate for replacing batteries and motors in everything from laptops to double-decker buses. They can produce electricity very efficiently from reactions between hydrogen or alcohol and oxygen, without generating any polluting gases. But until now, most fuel cells have needed rare metals such as platinum or palladium to help the reaction along.

The Oxford researchers found that instead of these expensive metals, they could use enzymes made from everyday fungus and bacteria, potentially making fuels cells much cheaper to manufacture. Organic fuel cells could also biodegrade naturally, creating less pollution than today’s batteries, which use toxic heavy metals.

Mushrooms might be powering more than just our mobiles, if Brazil is anything to go by. There, over half of all the cars on the roads can run on biofuel – alcoholic ethanol made from sugar cane plants. Biofuel is much cleaner to produce and burn than petrol, and comes from an infinitely renewable source. However, it usually requires plants like sugar cane that are naturally rich in glucose.

If biofuel is to take off in Europe, it’ll have to be made from plants that have more cellulose than glucose – and that’s where mushrooms come in again. Enzymes from fungus can break down common cellulose into glucose, which simple yeast then converts into alcohol.

Mushrooms can also help where pollution has already occurred. They’ve been used to clean up farm water flowing into rivers, remove contaminants from polluted soil and even break down heavy oil.

Spores for thought
As fungal science advances, there’s a chance that your Quorn burger might become classified military technology. The US patent office has received an application for a new combination of funguses that can munch their way through high explosives. Unexploded bombs and landmines affect at least 60 countries worldwide and injure or kill between 15,000 and 20,000 people annually. Explosives impregnated with this fungus mix would automatically degrade over days or weeks, rendering them harmless and reducing civilian casualties.

There are even reports that the nerve gases VX and sarin (used in the Tokyo tube attack) can be broken down and made safe using similar weapons of mush destruction. And while many wild varieties are poisonous, shiitake, maitake and reishi mushrooms are now undergoing tests for possible cancer busting and immune system-boosting properties.

The time when we can grow our own batteries or plant a few toadstool spores to clean up industrial accidents may still be a few years away, but the humble mushroom has already earned its place at the high tech table. Pass the brown sauce…

Eco-gadgets
Oyster mushroom spawn £5.25 www.organiccatalog.com
Grow your own organic oyster mushrooms on logs, straw or, for the ultimate in recycling, old toilet rolls.

Solar headphone radio £25 www.nigelsecostore.com
Get up to 20 hours of AM/FM listening pleasure from this solar-powered radio. Though pray for rain when Chris Moyles is on.

Rutland 913 Windcharger £450 www.cat.org.uk
This miniature wind turbine can charge up 12V batteries to power anything from portable tellys to water pumps.

Fruit powered clock £11 www.ecotopia.co.uk
It’s alive! Harness the tremendous resources of kiwis or guava to run a digital clock and calendar on nothing but juice.