Tailored living mycelium macerate for reproducible flexible actuators.

Abstract

The integration of living attributes, such as self-renewal and responsiveness, into structural materials remains a fundamental challenge, as they typically preclude the mechanical robustness required for practical applications. Here, we report a fungal-based maceration tailored strategy to create living mycelium materials with exceptional mechanical properties and programmable humidity responsiveness. The developed materials demonstrate wide-range adjustable tensile performance, achieving 11 ~ 349% elongation and 0.1 ~ 18.0 MJ·m^-3 toughness, the highest values reported among flexible mycelium materials. Through multiscale characterization from microstructural to molecular levels, we revealed the hygroscopic deformation mechanism of Janus mycelium macerates which arises from asymmetric hygromechanics and entropy-driven reorganization. Crucially, these materials retain their living functionalities, enabling reversible dormancy-regeneration cycles in 1 year and inheritable Janus structure along with self-renewal of performance. Moreover, we demonstrate their ability to convert environmental humidity fluctuations into quantifiable electrical signals, highlighting their potential as biohybrid environmental sensors and interactive platforms. This interdisciplinary study represents an integrative paradigm in living material design, and exhibits substantial potential for future sustainable and intelligent applications at the intersection of living mycelium materials and ecologically sustainable devices.