Engineered Bacteria Can Fill Cracks In Aging Concrete

By Clay Dillow Posted 11.16.2010 at 6:08 pm 8 Comments

Cracked Concrete

Researchers at the University of Newcastle in the UK have created a new kind of concrete glue that can patch up the cracks in concrete structures, restoring buildings that have been damaged by seismic events or deteriorated over time. But the glue isn’t an adhesive or some kind of synthetic material; the researchers have custom-designed a bacteria to burrow deep into the cracks in concrete where they produce a mix of calcium carbonate and a special bacteria glue that hardens to the same strength of the surrounding concreate.

“BacillaFilla,” as the researchers call it, is a genetically modified version of Bacillus subtilis, a bacteria commonly found in common soil. The researchers have tweaked it’s genetic properties such that it only begins to germinate when it comes in contact with the highly-specific pH of concrete. Once the cells germinate, they are programmed to crawl as deep as they can into cracks in the concrete, where quorum sensing lets them know when enough bacteria have accumulated.

That accumulation lets the bacteria know they’ve reached the deepest part of the crack, at which point the cells begin to develop into bacterial filaments, cells that produce calcium carbonate, and cells that secrete a kind of bacterial glue that binds everything together. Once hardened, the bacteria is essentially as strong as the concrete itself, restoring structural strength and adding life to the surrounding concrete.

The bacteria also contains a self-destruct gene that keeps it from wildly proliferating away from its concrete target, because a runaway patch of bacterial concrete that continued to grow despite all efforts to stop it would be somewhat annoying. The researchers hope their BacillaFilla will improve the longevity of concrete structures, which can be environmentally costly to erect. It could also be deployed in earthquake stricken zones to quickly reinforce damaged buildings and reduce the number of structures that have to be razed after a disaster.

[MSNBC]

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8 Comments

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MrJohnA

11/17/10 at 3:23 am

1) How freaking hard could it possibly be to automatically flag and remove-for-review all posts that: Have absolutely NO grammar or syntax, only have a list structure, are *highly* repetitive in structure and occurrence, and always have a flipping url within? Come on.

Anyway,

This is the new neatest-thing-I've-read-today. Anyone else think of that bio-gunk from the last season of BSG?

This could go a long way toward patching up Americas infrastructure. Depending how robust these little buggers are they might be able to last a while dormant. If so, they might mix degradable capsules full of them into new construction. Get a full second design life before any mechanical applications are needed.

Or allow novel structures that just wouldn't work otherwise, that wouldn't last long enough to use...Just keep 'irrigating' them with more BacillaFilla(tm) to maintain your impossible structure. Like a concrete ship for instance, only far thinner-hulled than the WWI and WWII versions since you can constantly fix cracks. Constantly.

Hey, we could get back into the ship building business that way!

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knucklesammich

11/17/10 at 10:03 am

That's nothing new, I had a professor that was working on that a few years ago.

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ZeroCool100

11/17/10 at 10:30 am

Stop spamming. People come here to read about the articles not about some website that you put on here.

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daemonsquire

11/17/10 at 12:43 pm

How come, no matter which link I follow, to whichever story has yet been published about this stuff, I see only pictures of cracks in concrete, and no "after" pictures of healed cracks? How it works sounds fascinating. Should I assume camera crews are on the way?

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Oakspar77777

11/17/10 at 3:50 pm

Am I the only person interested in seeing this in a weaponized form - particularly as an anti-personal round? I can thick of more than a few people with cracks I would like to seal shut.

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nhan1st

11/21/10 at 6:49 pm

Neat idea, though how long would it take for these bacteria to fix the road?
@ Oakspar By the time you seal their cracks, the pressure from the natural gas build up would exceed the concrete's structural strength and cause one hell of an explosion.

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BoltBreaker

11/22/10 at 10:55 am

"self-destruct gene that keeps it from wildly proliferating" Oh Boy! "Fantastic Four" THING is one step closer. Does anyone else find this a tad frightening?

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DfromSD

11/22/10 at 6:15 pm

This would be an awesome fix for Interstate highways and other concrete roads. Especially up here where the snow & ice (and removal chemicals) ruin them!

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