A biotech startup is researching building materials that could revolutionise construction. Not only are they biodegradable – some also absorb toxins. Cocoa husks, dried orange peel, ground blue pea flowers: the ingredients read like a tasting menu. They are, in fact, waste products that are used to make Orb – a sustainable building material that is carbon neutral. It’s versatile enough to be used for furniture or as a substitute for a wood-based sheet material. Orb is produced by Biohm, a startup founded in 2016 by Ehab Sayed. …Sayed’s “material development journey” led him to Open Cell, a community of biotech startups … in west London. With a small team … he has developed two materials: Orb, made out of food or agricultural waste, and mycelium insulation, made by feeding waste to the root system of mushrooms. “The aim is to replace every harmful construction material with something sustainable and higher performing,” Sayed explains.