Awesome: "living" concrete that can heal itself

[Statistikhengst]

The living concrete that can heal itself - CNN.com

"We have invented bioconcrete -- that's concrete that heals itself using bacteria," he says.

The bioconcrete is mixed just like regular concrete, but with an extra ingredient -- the "healing agent." It remains intact during mixing, only dissolving and becoming active if the concrete cracks and water gets in.

Jonkers, a microbiologist, began working on it in 2006, when a concrete technologist asked him if it would be possible to use bacteria to make self-healing concrete.

It took Jonkers three years to crack the problem -- but there were some tricky challenges to overcome.

"You need bacteria that can survive the harsh environment of concrete," says Jonkers. "It's a rock-like, stone-like material, very dry."

Concrete is extremely alkaline and the "healing" bacteria must wait dormant for years before being activated by water.

Pictures and video at the link.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Neat. With upcoming infrastructure debates and cost issues, self-repairing concrete bridges and such would be worth looking into.

 

[Ringel05]

Uuuummmm....... I wonder.........

 

[Muhammed]

I heard about this years ago at the World of Concrete convention and studies have shown that it does "heal" cracks. However it does have it's drawbacks, the main one being that it significantly reduces the compressive strength of the concrete.

Also, in modern concrete construction on infrastructure projects such as roads and bridges we use epoxy-coated rebar, therefore corrosion of the steel reinforcement due to water infiltration is no longer an issue on new projects.