Sustainable Buildings

Concrete is the most consumed resource on earth next to water. Curtin researchers are developing a self-healing and sustainable biocement using natural microbes that could be utilised in a range of building construction and restoration applications.

In this episode, David is joined by civil engineer Professor Abhijit Mukherjee and construction biotechnologist Dr Navdeep Dhami to explain what biocement is, how it works and how it can help us to build better in the future.

• What are biominerals and where are they found? (3.04)
• How biocement can address environmental challenges (6.09)
• The advantages and drawbacks of biocement compared to traditional construction materials (9.13)
• Current and proposed applications of biocement (13.25)
• Industry and economic challenges of biocement technology (18.26)
• How to ‘coexist with nature’ by harnessing natural processes to ensure a sustainable future (21.53)

Learn more

• A review of different treatment methods for enhancing the properties of recycled aggregates for sustainable construction materials
• Protection of concrete structures under sulfate environments by using calcifying bacteria
• Can we benefit from the microbes present in rammed earth?
• Biomineralization of calcium carbonates and their engineered applications: a review

Got any questions, or suggestions for future topics?

Email [email protected].

Curtin University supports academic freedom of speech. The views expressed in The Future Of podcast may not reflect those of the university.

Music: OKAY by 13ounce Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0 Music promoted by Audio Library

You can read the full transcript for the episode here.