Engineered living building materials

Experiments: basic research on living systems, not technology.

Also: living building materials, living concrete, self-healing concrete, biomineralization

Building materials that contain living microbes, which can harden the material by making minerals, repair cracks, or even grow new generations of the material.

Known properties: Engineered living building materials

Only what the cited papers report.

Microbial survival in the living building material (9–14% after 30 days) far exceeded reported values for microbes in cement-based materials (0.1–0.4%). doi:10.1016/j.matt.2019.11.016
Structural strength was highest when the material was very dry, but long drying reduced microbial survival. doi:10.1016/j.matt.2019.11.016

Uses proposed by researchers for this topic are listed on Potential uses.

Patents

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Timeline

2010 Bacteria as a self-healing agent in concrete
2020 Living building material that reproduces

Readiness: lab lab studies · prototype demonstrated objects · commercial products or buildings in real use · review summaries of other studies.
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construction

lab construction 2020

Living building material that reproduces

Heveran and colleagues made a sand-hydrogel building material inoculated with a photosynthetic cyanobacterium that toughened it by depositing calcium carbonate; one parent block was regenerated into three successive generations, and 9–14% of microbes stayed alive after 30 days at 50% humidity or more.

Built / tested: living building material

As reported in: Heveran, Williams, Qiu et al. (2020). Biomineralization and Successive Regeneration of Engineered Living Building Materials. Matter. doi:10.1016/j.matt.2019.11.016

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lab construction 2010

Bacteria as a self-healing agent in concrete

Jonkers and colleagues studied the use of bacteria as a self-healing agent for developing more sustainable concrete.

As reported in: Jonkers, Thijssen, Muyzer et al. (2010). Application of bacteria as self-healing agent for the development of sustainable concrete. Ecological Engineering. doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2008.12.036

Abstract only