Timber is a strong, durable, aesthetically pleasing and sustainable building material but its combustibility represents a safety threat. Commonly used fire and flame retardants are often environmentally unfriendly, while safety cladding is labour intensive and covers the wood, decreasing the aesthetic appeal of the building. Mineralisation of wood with calcium carbonate has been shown to be a promising, eco-friendly alternative. Calcium carbonate is an efficient flame retardant that does not contribute to smoke and toxicity and is practically insoluble in water, meaning leaching is not an issue. Most of the approaches described so far, however, require the use of expensive equipment, have high energy requirements or involve the use of toxic chemicals. Microorganisms contribute significantly to mineral formation on Earth and their ability to do so could be harnessed for generating novel materials. In this work, we explore the biomineralisation potential of several selected fungi that grow in or on wood. Aureobasidium pullulans, Phialemonium inflatum, Penicillium chrysogenum and Schizophyllum commune displayed biomineral formation, though the shapes, size and abundance of the minerals varied. The crystals formed by the three ascomycetes were similar, those produced by Schizophyllum commune were much smaller, needle like and attached to the hyphae. The presented data is preliminary and further characterisation of the crystals will be performed. Moreover, the experimental setup will be optimised to enable semi high-throughput screening of biomineralisation capacity of various fungi in different media, to identify the best combination.

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