
Francis Willis Matthew Robert SchwarzeSwiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology | Empa · Cellulose & Wood Materials
Francis Willis Matthew Robert Schwarze
Prof. Dr.
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203
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Introduction
My team and I have made highly significant contributions to fundamental understanding of wood decay by fungi and apply the knowledge for the benefit of such important wood science and technology areas such as permeability enhancement of heart-woods and refractory timbers, detection of tree rings, enhancement of the acoustic properties of violins, biocontrol of decay fungi affecting urban tree health and spalted wood production.
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Publications
Publications (203)
Violins produced by Antonio Stradivari during the late 17th and early 18th centuries are reputed to have superior tonal qualities. Dendrochronological studies show that Stradivari used Norway spruce that had grown mostly during the Maunder Minimum, a period of reduced solar activity when relatively low temperatures caused trees to lay down wood wit...
Much remains to be learned about the biology of mushroom-forming fungi, which are an important source of food, secondary metabolites and industrial enzymes. The wood-degrading fungus Schizophyllum commune is both a genetically tractable model for studying mushroom development and a likely source of enzymes capable of efficient degradation of lignoc...
Picus® acoustic tomography was used to map incipient stages of fungal decay in the sapwood of standing Douglas fir, beech, oak,
and sycamore trees 2, 16, and 27months after wounding and artificial inoculation with brown-, soft-, and white-rot decay
fungi. Some wood properties were additionally measured before (velocity of sound) and after (moisture...
Growing e-waste and the dwindling of nonrenewable materials underscore the urgency to develop electronics based on renewable natural resources. Using cellulose as a material for 3D printing living fungal electrodes is a novel way to harness their metabolic activity for potential use in electrochemical devices. This study shows that the yeast Saccha...
A systemic understanding of the use of wood resources is required to defossilize society and promote bio‐based developments. This study provides a novel approach to represent a comprehensive material flow analysis (MFA) spanning the entire wood value chain; encompassing wood harvest to products, use in society, collection, reuse, recycle, energy ge...
Although bioluminescence is documented both anecdotally and experimentally, the parameters involved in the production of fungal bioluminescence during wood colonization have not been identified to date. Here, for the first time, this work develops a methodology to produce a hybrid living material by manipulating wood colonization through merging th...
The architecture, engineering, and construction industry is undergoing a significant shift, steering buildings away from resource‐intensive processes toward becoming instruments for climate mitigation. In this transformative landscape, integrating circular bio‐based alternatives and reducing emissions through biotechnological and enzymatic processe...
Growing e-waste and the dwindling of non-renewable materials underscores the urgency to develop electronics based on renewable natural resources. Using cellu-lose as a material for 3D printing living fungal electrodes, is a novel way to harness their metabolic activity for potential use in electrochemical devices. This study shows that the yeast Sa...
Trichoderma spp. are a genus of well-known fungi that promote healthy growth and modulate different functions in plants, as well as protect against various plant pathogens. The application of Trichoderma and its propagules as a biological control method can therefore help to reduce the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers in agriculture. This...
Trichoderma spp. are ubiquitous soil-borne fungi that are widely used in biological control to promote and regulate healthy plant growth, as well as protect against plant pathogens. However, as with many biological materials, the relative instability of Trichoderma propagules limits its practical use in industrial applications. Therefore, there has...
Newly enforced trade restrictions on seaweed, have resulted in short supply of technical agar with potential consequences for research, public health, and clinical labs. Here we show that microfibrillated cellulose (MFC), with and without an additional carbon source, can be used as an inexpensive growth media for cultivating and maintaining wood de...
Depending on the conditions used to grow fungi and algae in the lab, they can interact in a mutually beneficial or negative way. These interactions could stimulate the organisms to produce enzymes in response to the interaction.
Microbial deterioration of wood has gradually destroyed precious historic musical instruments. The Serpentino (English: serpent/little snake) is a wind instrument used for over 400 years and is considered the godfather of modern instruments such as the saxophone and the tuba. Many original instruments have been totally destroyed due to colonization...
Wood decay fungi play an important role as recyclers of organic matter in the nutrient cycle. The risks of wood degradation by fungi are widely discussed, but little attention is given to the opportunity to apply wood decay fungi for wood functionalization, modification and/or wood protection. For this purpose, the mycelium (fungal network), spores...
White-rot fungi can degrade all lignocellulose components due to their potent lignin and
cellulose-degrading enzymes. In this study, five white-rot fungi, Trametes versicolor, Trametes pubescens, Ganoderma adspersum, Ganoderma lipsiense, and Rigidoporus vitreus were tested for endoglucanase, laccase, urease, and glucose-6-phosphate (G6P) production...
Producing electricity from renewable sources and reducing its consumption by buildings are necessary to meet energy and climate change challenges. Wood is an excellent “green” building material and, owing to its piezoelectric behavior, could enable direct conversion of mechanical energy into electricity. Although this phenomenon has been discovered...
The dark side of fungal competition and resource capture in wood: Zone line spalting from science to application
On wood surfaces and in planar section, zones lines appear as narrow and sharply delineated dark lines within wood visibly altered (“spalted”) by the decay process. In intact wood, zone lines define an irregular volume of decaying wood. They are primarily aggregations of melanised hyphae that enclose wood being decayed by a single genetic individua...
Soil conditions can directly influence the inoculum potential of wood decay fungi, which is likely to be a major factor in the premature failure of utility poles across Europe. The objective of our study was to assess the influence of soil pH, humic acid and iron on wood decay. For this purpose, we incubated Fe-impregnated wood specimens on artific...
Melanins are natural biopolymers that are known to contribute to different biological processes and to protect organisms from adverse environmental conditions. During the past decade, melanins have attracted increasing attention for their use in organic semiconductors and bioelectronics, drug delivery, photoprotection and environmental bioremediati...
Violin varnishes influence the vibrational properties of tonewood. However, the frequency dependence of the varnish influence and mechanical properties of typical varnishes has received little attention. The viscoelastic properties of various violin varnish materials over the audible frequency range were characterized by dynamic mechanical analysis...
Developing low-cost and biodegradable piezoelectric nanogenerators is of great importance for a variety of applications, from harvesting low-grade mechanical energy to wearable sensors. Many of the most widely used piezoelectric materials, including lead zirconate titanate (PZT), suffer from serious drawbacks such as complicated synthesis, poor mec...
Societal Impact Statement
The impact of global warming on wood formation means that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find superior‐quality resonance wood for the production of musical instruments. Using fungi, we can mimic the effects of a cold climate on wood, to produce biotech violins with a tone matching those of a Stradivarius. Our wor...
Background:
In trees, secondary metabolites (SMs) are essential for determining the effectiveness of defence systems against fungi and why defences are sometimes breached. Using the CODIT model (Compartmentalisation of Damage/Dysfunction in Trees), we explain defence processes at the cellular level. CODIT is a highly compartmented defence system t...
Violin varnishes are known to alter the longitudinal and radial material properties of violin tonewood. Here, the varnish-induced changes in the vibrational and elastic properties of spruce and maple wood were studied by modal analysis of rectangular plates. This contact-free investigation yields the eigenfrequencies and corresponding mode shapes a...
Wood is still one of the most used construction materials due to its abundancy, strength-to-weight ratio, production costs, and environmental benefits. However, as wood is biodegradable, it has a limited service life. Wood products in ground contact have to be treated with Cu-based wood preservatives owing to the favorable conditions for wood decay...
Violin varnishes are known to affect both moisture absorption and vibrational properties of violin wood. However, traditional multi-layered varnish systems suffer from substantial wear as a result of intensive use, which calls for deeper understanding of the specific impact of individual layers. Using sophisticated in-situ neutron imaging and vibra...
In recent years, heavy metal pollution in water resources has become a severe environmental and public health problem worldwide. Thereby, enhanced treatments are urgently needed with respect to eco-friendliness, filtration efficiencies and low operational costs. This study demonstrates how fungal melanin extracted from Armillaria cepistipes (Empa 6...
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Violins are varnished to protect them against wear, from changes in relative humidity and to enhance the instrument’s appearance. Furthermore, studies have shown that the application of varnish alters the mechanical and vibrational properties of the wood, respectively, the instrument. Commonly, the varnish...
Different brown rot wood-destroying fungi have the ability to develop Cu-tolerance mechanisms in order to effectively grow and decompose wood treated with copper (Cu), a compulsory biocide for in ground timber structures. We analyzed if the Cu-tolerant wood-destroying basidiomycete Rhodonia placenta is able to compartmentalize Cu in its basidiospor...
Natural melanin features many interesting properties, including the ability to shield electromagnetic radiation, to act as scavenger for radical and reactive oxygen species and the capacity to chelate different metal ions. For these reasons, melanin is becoming increasingly relevant for the development of functional materials, for potential applica...
Lignin is one of the most available biomass products, but its potential for the development of functional materials has yet to be unleashed. Here, the modification of lignin and lignosulfonate with poly(ethylene-alt-maleic anhydride) [P(E-alt-MA)], a functional polymer of wide industrial use, is accomplished by means of a simple esterification reac...
The use of wood as an eco-friendly building material requires the development of environmentally benign wood preservatives, which are ideally non-toxic during and after service life. However, too little is known about the protection of wood against wood decay fungi using non-biocidal methods, and as a result, simple but effective methods that incre...
Meeting the increasing demand of clean water requires the development of novel efficient adsorbent materials for the removal of organic pollutants. In this context the use of natural, renewable sources is of special relevance and sepia melanin, thanks to its ability to bind a variety of organic and inorganic species, has already attracted interest...
The gradual elimination of chromium from wood preservative formulations results in higher Cu leaching and increased susceptibility to wood decay fungi. Finding a sustainable strategy in wood protection has become of great interest among researchers. The objective of these in vitro studies was to demonstrate the effect of T-720-enriched organic char...
A series of laboratory tests was conducted to screen and identify Tnchoderma spp. for the biological control of P. noxius on pruning wounds. In total, 7 Trichoderma isolates were evaluated for their biological fitness and antagonism towards 2 different P. noxius isolates associated with Senegal mahogany and rain tree in Singapore. The competitive a...
The obvious purpose of varnishing a stringed instrument is the protection against wear and relative humidity changes as well as enhancing its aesthetic appearance. Besides, it is known that varnishing changes the acoustic properties of the wood [1]. Unlike studies on the chemical compositions of old varnishes, in searching for the “secret” of well-...
The production of new generation of wood preservatives (without addition of a co-biocide) in combination with an exchange of wood poles on identical sites with high fungal inoculum, has resulted in an increase of premature failures of wood utility poles in the last decades. Wood destroying basidiomycetes inhabiting sites where poles have been insta...
Background
We investigated the particles released due to abrasion of wood surfaces pressure-treated with micronized copper azole (MCA) wood preservative and we gathered preliminary data on its in vitro cytotoxicity for lung cells. The data were compared with particles released after abrasion of untreated, water (0% MCA)-pressure-treated, chromated...
This review examines the roles that ray and axial parenchyma (RAP) plays against fungal pathogens in the secondary xylem of wood within the context of the CODIT model (Compartmentalization of Decay in Trees), a defense concept first conceived in the early 1970s by Alex Shigo. This model, simplistic in its design, shows how a large woody perennial i...
In-vitro evaluation of antagonistic Trichoderma strains for eradicating Phellinus
noxius in colonised wood. The aim of the present in-vitro studies was to identify Trichoderma strains from
Hong Kong with highly antagonistic potential against the basidiomycete Phellinus noxius. Dual culture
and interaction tests using samples of balsa wood (Ochroma...
Changes in the fracture behaviour of Norway spruce tonewood after fungal treatment were studied. Specimens were incubated for 6, 9 and 12 months with Physisporinus (P.) vitreus. Fracture tests were performed in a compact-tension fracture experiment set-up, and the results were compared with the morphological analysis of the degraded wood structure...
The North American wood decking market mostly relies on easily treatable Southern yellow pine (SYP), which is being impregnated with micronized copper (MC) wood preservatives since 2006. These formulations are composed of copper (Cu) carbonate particles (CuCO 3 ÁCu(OH) 2), with sizes ranging from 1 nm to 250 μm, according to manufacturers. MC-treat...
Over the past 10 years, we have intensively investigated the potential of the white-rot fungus Physisporinus vitreus for engineering value-added wood products. Because of its exceptional wood degradation pattern, i.e., selective lignification without significant wood strength losses and a preferential degradation of bordered pit membranes, it is po...
Wood varnish coatings not only are aesthetically important, but also preserve the musical instrument from wear and fluctuations in the ambient humidity. Depending on the thickness, extent of penetration into the wood and the physical and mechanical properties after hardening, varnishes may change the mechanical and also vibro-acoustical properties...
In contact with soil, copper (Cu) formulations as preservatives are expected to inhibit wood decay by fungi and other soil-borne microorganisms. However, Cu-resistant brown-rot (BR) fungi lead to premature failures of utility poles at some sites. In this study, the service lives of 111 utility poles of Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) H. Karst) (73...
Over the past 10 years, we have intensively investigated the potential of the white-rot fungus Physisporinus vitreus for engineering value-added wood products. Because of its exceptional wood degradation pattern, i.e., selective lignification without significant wood strength losses and a preferential degradation of bordered pit membranes, it is po...
The goal of the current study was to investigate the physical and mechanical properties of mycowood as a high quality tone-wood, obtained from Norway spruce by treatment of the white rot fungus Physisporinus vitreus as a function of the treatment time. In focus was the stiffness to weight ratio, which is often considered a main criterion for tone-w...
Recently introduced micronized copper (MC) formulations, consisting of a nanosized fraction of basic copper (Cu) carbonate (CuCO3·Cu(OH)2) nanoparticles (NPs), were introduced to the market for wood protection. Cu NPs may presumably be more effective against wood-destroying fungi than bulk or ionic Cu compounds. In particular, Cu- tolerant wood-des...
Tree pruning creates wounds that are amenable for wood decay fungi colonization. To characterize the dynamic host–fungus interactions at this location in Senegal mahogany (Khaya senegalensis), in vitro and in vivo pathogenicity tests were conducted with wood decay fungi associated with this tropical tree species. Fomitiporella caryophylii, Hymenoch...