Micro organism strains provide sustainable biocement answer

A current research examines the effectiveness of environmental strains for the manufacturing of biocement. The research’s lead writer, Dimitrios Terzis, is an EPFL senior scientist and a co-founder of Medusoil, an organization that produces natural binders and that opened a manufacturing plant in Vaud in 2024.

“For me, it is important to maintain conducting basic analysis,” says Terzis, a civil engineer at EPFL’s Soil Mechanics Laboratory. His firm Medusoil produces natural binders which can be much like biocement.

For the research printed just lately in Scientific Stories, Terzis labored with scientists from the College of Utilized Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland to investigate 50 micro organism strains sourced from farmland in Ticino canton. This land is used for grazing dairy cattle and has proven to be significantly nicely fitted to the manufacturing of Medusoil’s biocement because of the broadly accessible presence of calcium.

Biocementation depends on stimulating a pure course of: The secretion by microorganisms of an enzyme that triggers the formation of carbonate, which then binds with the calcium largely current within the soil to type calcite, a pure cement.

The research recognized which naturally occurring strains fabricate the enzyme required for carbonate formation and will be fermented—two components that make them prime candidates for biocement manufacturing. The scientists created a tradition of probably the most promising pressure, which was inoculated in a 1.5-meter-high column of sand.

After 24 hours of infiltration, the column was sturdy sufficient to maintain its weight and for use in a wide range of geotechnical engineering and geoenvironmental functions, like erosion. The scientists additionally discovered that utilizing this pressure may minimize manufacturing prices by 40%.

A paradigm shift

Medusoil, based seven years in the past, provides natural binders whose carbon impression is no less than 55% decrease than that of normal cement, which is made by heating an 80% limestone/20% clay combination to excessive temperatures. Biocement can be utilized in a lot of geotechnical and constructing functions, akin to to strengthen dams, forestall soil erosion by wind and assist defend areas topic to landslides, earthquakes or cyclic hundreds induced by street and railway site visitors.

To check yet one more software, the corporate’s biocement was utilized in a mission in Geneva to get better concrete aggregates from demolished buildings. And since biocement will be employed a number of instances, it helps the round financial system.

Within the Scientific Stories research, the authors observe that this naturally occurring biocementation course of will be utilized on a big scale and may also help drive a paradigm shift in the direction of better sustainability within the development business.

New manufacturing plant

Medusoil reached a brand new milestone in 2024 with the opening of a manufacturing plant in Molondin, close to Yverdon-les-Bains. “The plant can generate 400,000 liters of biocement per yr, which is sufficient to stabilize 5 kilometers of riverbank towards erosion,” says Vincent Laurençon, Medusoil’s head of producing.

The corporate additionally has a cellular biocementation plant designed to utilize native uncooked supplies. It was just lately transported by truck to Romania, for instance, the place it was employed to strengthen roads. The agency intends to pursue its cutting-edge R&D and has initiatives lined up this yr in France, the Center East and the Netherlands.