Rehabilitating concrete with self-healing techniques
A paper reviews the types of bacteria used in concrete and the ways it can be applied as healing agents. It also gives a brief description of various properties of concrete which vary with the addition of bacteria.
Micro-cracks are inherently present in concrete. This causes degradation leading to ingress of deleterious substances into concrete, resulting in deterioration of structures. Due to this concrete needs to be rehabilitated. To surmount these situations self-healing techniques are adopted.
Encapsulation method gives better results
By the addition of urease engendering bacteria along with calcium source results in calcite precipitation in concrete. Bio-mineralization techniques give promising results in sealing the micro-cracks in concrete. The freshly composed micro-cracks can be sealed up by perpetual hydration process in concrete. The ureolytic bacteria which include Bacillus Pasteurii, Bacillus Subtilis which can engender urea are integrated along with the calcium source to seal the freshly composed micro cracks by CaCO3 precipitation. For the amelioration of pore structure in concrete, the bacterial concentrations were optimised for better results. The literature shows that encapsulation method will give better results than direct application method and also shows that the use of bacteria can increase the strength and durability properties of concrete.
The study is published in: Construction and Building Materials, Volume 152, 15 October 2017, Pages 1008–1014
