Efficacy of Cellulose Fiber as Bacteria Carrier for Self-Healing Concrete and 3D Polymer Microstructure

Abstract

Microcracks are known to occur at an early stage in constructions utilizing concrete thereby affecting its serviceability and increasing the cost of repair and maintenance. As a result, there is a growing need to use a microbiological crack-healing strategy to arrest and mitigate the impact of the microcracks. The microbial system's distinguishing characteristic is that it allows concrete to self-heal. This study addresses the efficiency of microbiologically induced calcite precipitation in increasing the durability and selfhealing of cementitious construction materials. The primary focus has been on developing a carrier to protect the bacteria from being crushed during casting and from the harsh environment. The results of the SEM examination demonstrated that cellulose fiber bacteria can live at temperatures as high as 160 degrees Celsius, as opposed to direct bacteria, which can only survive at temperatures as high as 60 degrees Celsius. On the 28th day of curing, the cellulose fiber bacteria exhibited a 25% improvement in split tensile and compressive strength over the control concrete. Furthermore, after 28 days, the Cellulose fiber bacteria self-healed up to 1.5 mm fracture concretes via wetdry technique and 2.5 mm crack concretes by induced method after 40 days. Fiber-Sphaericus bacteria capable of producing spores and 3D printed materials to grow bionic mineralized composites with ordered microstructure was utilized. Bionic composites outperformed the control microstructure by 50% in terms of specific compressive strength and fracture toughness, and they also self-healed a larger percentage of the lattice beam within 12 days. This study contributes towards the development of 3D-architectural hybrid synthetic living materials with live ordered microstructures.