Scientists have created self-healing concrete that consumes carbon dioxide and "heals" cracks in 24 hours

During the production of concrete, a huge amount of carbon dioxide is emitted, which is why the various groups scientists are looking for technologies that will significantly reduce CO2 emissions during this process.

Such constant searches prompted the idea to develop the so-called self-healing concrete, capable of independently repairing cracks.

After a long search, scientists managed to develop such a concrete in which an enzyme previously found in human blood was used. Today I want to tell you about this unique development.

Professor Rahbar (right) and his team have developed a self-healing concrete using an enzyme found in red blood cells. Worcester Polytechnic Institute

The problem of concrete destruction and its solution

Microscopic cracks, which inevitably form in concrete, do not in themselves pose a serious threat to the strength of the structure. But only if water gets into these cracks and freezes, then expanding, it will increase these microcracks and several such expansion cycles will ultimately lead to the destruction of the concrete structure.

The main idea of ​​self-healing concrete is to wedge in this process while the cracks have formed completely small and seal them in order to avoid destruction and subsequent expensive repairs or even complete replacement of concrete in the future constructions.

What was suggested by scientists

The idea of ​​self-healing concrete is not new, and earlier scientists have already proposed various options. "Healing" of sodium silicate concrete, the use of bacteria that produce special glue, the use of the fungus.

But a research team from the Worcester Institute has come up with what they say is a much more efficient and yet also cheaper way.

Scientists have proposed to use a special enzyme that is found in human red blood cells, and namely carbonic anhydrase (CA), which is able to transfer CO2 from human cells into the bloodstream as quickly as possible.

So the scientists added the enzyme to the cement before making concrete and conducted a series of experiments. After it was possible to find out that after the formation of a crack in the concrete, the added enzyme reacts with atmospheric CO2 and as a result this forms calcium carbonate crystals, which mimic the characteristics of concrete and quickly fill the formed crack.

And it was found that the concrete alloyed in this way is able to "heal" its own crack of a millimeter size within one day. According to scientists, this is much faster than experiments with previous versions showed. After all, then the time required for self-healing of much smaller cracks was measured in weeks.

So scientists have found that such a refinement of concrete will increase its service life from 20 to 80 years, which is strong will reduce the need for the production of concrete for repair work and thus reduce the emissions of harmful gases in our atmosphere.

The scientists shared the results of their experiment on the pages of the journal Applied Materials Today. And below is a video with self-healing concrete.

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