ABOVE: Building material made from cyanobacteria and sand
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE AT COLORADO UNIVERSITY BOULDER
Bacteria and sand can be combined to form a living material that acts like concrete, according to a study published in Matter yesterday (January 15). Researchers led by Wil Srubar, a civil engineer and head of the Living Materials Laboratory at the University of Colorado Boulder, combined sand and hydrogel, an absorbent network of polymers, to form a scaffold. Then they added a species of Synechococcus, a photosynthetic cyanobacteria. The hydrogel provided moisture and nutrients for the bacteria, allowing them to grow and mineralize. The end result was a substance similar in strength to concrete-based mortar.
In this material, the bacteria remained alive and could reproduce. When the researchers cut a brick in half, it grew into two complete bricks with the addition of a bit of sand, hydrogel,...
“What we’re really excited about is that this challenges the conventional ways in which we manufacture structural building materials,” says Srubar in the press release. “This is a material platform that sets the stage for brand new exciting materials that can be engineered to interact and respond to their environments.”
C.M. Heveran et al., “Biomineralization and successive regeneration of engineered living building materials,” Matter, doi:10.1016/j.matt.2019.11.016, 2020.
Emily Makowski is an intern at The Scientist. Email her at emakowski@the-scientist.com.
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