scholarly journals Encapsulation Techniques and Test Methods of Evaluating the Bacteria-Based Self-Healing Efficiency of Concrete: A Literature Review

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-85
Author(s):  
Rahul Roy ◽  
Emanuele Rossi ◽  
Johan Silfwerbrand ◽  
Henk Jonkers

AbstractCrack formation in concrete structures due to various load and non-load factors leading to degradation of service life is very common. Repair and maintenance operations are, therefore, necessary to prevent cracks propagating and reducing the service life of the structures. Accessibility to affected areas can, however, be difficult as the reconstruction and maintenance of concrete buildings are expensive in labour and capital. Autonomous healing by encapsulated bacteria-based self-healing agents is a possible solution. During this process, the bacteria are released from a broken capsule or triggered by water and oxygen access. However, its performance and reliability depend on continuous water supply, protection against the harsh environment, and densification of the cementitious matrix for the bacteria to act. There are vast methods of encapsulating bacteria and the most common carriers used are: encapsulation in polymeric materials, lightweight aggregates, cementitious materials, special minerals, nanomaterials, and waste-derived biomass. Self-healing efficiency of these encapsulated technologies can be assessed through many experimental methodologies according to the literature. These experimental evaluations are performed in terms of quantification of crackhealing, recovery of durability and mechanical properties (macro-level test) and characterization of precipitated crystals by healing agent (micro-level test). Until now, quantification of crack-healing by light microscopy revealed maximum crack width of 1.80mm healed. All research methods available for assesing self-healing efficiency of bacteria-based healing agents are worth reviewing in order to include a coherent, if not standardized framework testing system and a comparative evaluation for a novel incorporated bacteria-based healing agent.

Materials ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 3711
Author(s):  
Mohammad Fahimizadeh ◽  
Ayesha Diane Abeyratne ◽  
Lee Sui Mae ◽  
R. K. Raman Singh ◽  
Pooria Pasbakhsh

Crack formation in concrete is one of the main reasons for concrete degradation. Calcium alginate capsules containing biological self-healing agents for cementitious materials were studied for the self-healing of cement paste and mortars through in vitro characterizations such as healing agent survivability and retention, material stability, and biomineralization, followed by in situ self-healing observation in pre-cracked cement paste and mortar specimens. Our results showed that bacterial spores fully survived the encapsulation process and would not leach out during cement mixing. Encapsulated bacteria precipitated CaCO3 when exposed to water, oxygen, and calcium under alkaline conditions by releasing CO32− ions into the cement environment. Capsule rupture is not required for the initiation of the healing process, but exposure to the right conditions are. After 56 days of wet–dry cycles, the capsules resulted in flexural strength regain as high as 39.6% for the cement mortar and 32.5% for the cement paste specimens. Full crack closure was observed at 28 days for cement mortars with the healing agents. The self-healing system acted as a biological CO32− pump that can keep the bio-agents retained, protected, and active for up to 56 days of wet-dry incubation. This promising self-healing strategy requires further research and optimization.


2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 497-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Van Tittelboom ◽  
Nele De Belie ◽  
Denis Van Loo ◽  
Patric Jacobs

Author(s):  
Ahsennur Soysal ◽  
Jose Milla ◽  
Gary M King ◽  
Marwa Hassan ◽  
Tyson Rupnow

Bacterial concrete has become one of the most promising self-healing alternatives owing to its capability to seal crack widths through microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP). In this study, two bacterial strains were embedded at varying dosages (by weight of cement) in concrete. Beam specimens were used to quantify the maximum crack-sealing efficiency, whereas cylinder samples were used to determine their effects on the intrinsic mechanical properties of concrete, as well as its stiffness recovery over time after inducing damage. The concrete specimens were cured in wet–dry cycles to enable healing. Results showed that the specimen groups with the highest calcium alginate concentrations (including the control specimens with embedded alginate beads but no bacteria) resulted in the greatest increase in stiffness recovery. Similarly, the beam samples containing alginate beads (also including the Control 3%C specimen group) had superior crack-healing efficiencies to the control samples without alginate beads (Control NC). This was attributed to the alginate beads acting as a reservoir that can further enhance the autogenous healing capability of concrete. Based on the results of this study, further research is recommended to explore factors that can maximize the self-healing mechanism of bacterial concrete through MICP and determine whether an alternative encapsulation mechanism, nutrient selection, curing regime, or bacterial strain is needed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 996 ◽  
pp. 104-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhen Hong Yang ◽  
Xian Feng Wang ◽  
Ning Xu Han ◽  
Feng Xing

In this study, Na2CO3 solution as a self-healing agent was impregnated in LWA for autonomic self-healing on cracked cementitious material. The results showed that under the joint action of expansive agent, crystalline additive, phosphate and carbonate, the crack area showed a high self-healing efficiency (close to 70%) after curing in the still water 28d. SEM-EDS test results showed that in addition to ettringite and C-S-H/C-A-S-H, there was also a large amount of CaCO3 crystal in the depths of the crack.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haoliang Huang ◽  
Guang Ye

In this research, self-healing due to further hydration of unhydrated cement particles is taken as an example for investigating the effects of capsules on the self-healing efficiency and mechanical properties of cementitious materials. The efficiency of supply of water by using capsules as a function of capsule dosages and sizes was determined numerically. By knowing the amount of water supplied via capsules, the efficiency of self-healing due to further hydration of unhydrated cement was quantified. In addition, the impact of capsules on mechanical properties was investigated numerically. The amount of released water increases with the dosage of capsules at different slops as the size of capsules varies. Concerning the best efficiency of self-healing, the optimizing size of capsules is 6.5 mm for capsule dosages of 3%, 5%, and 7%, respectively. Both elastic modulus and tensile strength of cementitious materials decrease with the increase of capsule. The decreasing tendency of tensile strength is larger than that of elastic modulus. However, it was found that the increase of positive effect (the capacity of inducing self-healing) of capsules is larger than that of negative effects (decreasing mechanical properties) when the dosage of capsules increases.


2021 ◽  
pp. 105678952110112
Author(s):  
Kaihang Han ◽  
Jiann-Wen Woody Ju ◽  
Yinghui Zhu ◽  
Hao Zhang ◽  
Tien-Shu Chang ◽  
...  

The cementitious composites with microencapsulated healing agents have become a class of hotspots in the field of construction materials, and they have very broad application prospects and research values. The in-depth study on multi-scale mechanical behaviors of microencapsulated self-healing cementitious composites is critical to quantitatively account for the mechanical response during the damage-healing process. This paper proposes a three-dimensional evolutionary micromechanical model to quantitatively explain the self-healing effects of microencapsulated healing agents on the damage induced by microcracks. By virtue of the proposed 3 D micromechanical model, the evolutionary domains of microcrack growth (DMG) and corresponding compliances of the initial, extended and repaired phases are obtained. Moreover, the elaborate studies are conducted to inspect the effects of various system parameters involving the healing efficiency, fracture toughness and preloading-induced damage degrees on the compliances and stress-strain relations. The results indicate that relatively significant healing efficiency, preloading-induced damage degree and the fracture toughness of polymerized healing agent with the matrix will lead to a higher compressive strength and stiffness. However, the specimen will break owing to the nucleated microcracks rather than the repaired kinked microcracks. Further, excessive higher values of healing efficiency, preloading-induced damage degree and the fracture toughness of polymerized healing agent with the matrix will not affect the compressive strength of the cementitious composites. Therefore, a stronger matrix is required. To achieve the desired healing effects, the specific parameters of both the matrix and microcapsules should be selected prudently.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo Hungria ◽  
Momen Mousa ◽  
Marwa Hassan ◽  
Omar Omar ◽  
Andrea Gavilanes ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Jadin Zam S. Doctolero ◽  
Arnel B. Beltran ◽  
Marigold O. Uba ◽  
April Anne S. Tigue ◽  
Michael Angelo B. Promentilla

A sustainable solution for crack maintenance in geopolymers is necessary if they are to be the future of modern green construction. This study thus aimed to develop self-healing biogeopolymers that could potentially rival bioconcrete. First, a suitable healing agent was selected from Bacillus subtilis, B. sphaericus, and B. megaterium by directly adding their spores in the geopolymers and subsequently exposing them to a large amount of nutrients for 14 days. SEM-EDX analysis revealed the formation of biominerals for B. subtilis and B. sphaericus. Next, the effect of biochar-immobilization and co-culturing (B. sphaericus and B. thuringiensis) on the healing efficiencies of the geopolymers were tested and optimized by measuring their ultrasonic pulse velocities weekly over a 28-day healing period. The results show that using co-cultured bacteria significantly improved the observed efficiencies, while biochar-immobilization had a weak effect but yielded an optimum response between 0.3-0.4 g/mL. The maximum crack width sealed was 0.65 mm. Through SEM-EDX and FTIR analyses, the biominerals precipitated in the cracks were identified to be mainly CaCO3. Furthermore, image analysis of the XCT scans of some of the healed geopolymers confirmed that their pulse velocities were indeed improving due to the filling of their internal spaces with biominerals. With that, there is potential in developing self-healing biogeopolymers using biochar-immobilized spores of bacterial cultures.


2018 ◽  
Vol 761 ◽  
pp. 152-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip van den Heede ◽  
Bjorn van Belleghem ◽  
Maria Adelaide Araújo ◽  
João Feiteira ◽  
Nele de Belie

The service life of steel reinforced concrete in aggressive marine environments could be increased substantially by embedding a self-healing mechanism that ensures autonomous healing of cracks upon their occurrence. Previous proof-of-concept experiments have shown that the incorporation of encapsulated polymer-based healing agents (HAs) counts as a very appropriate way to achieve this goal. Over the years, several polymer-precursor-capsule systems have been developed in that perspective at our laboratory. Cementitious materials containing either commercial or in-house developed encapsulated HAs have been subjected to preliminary feasibility tests (water absorption, permeability tests, etc.). However, these experiments did not yet allow for a fast and straightforward assessment of the self-healing efficiency (SHE) in relation to the expected durability and service life performance of the material. This approach would have many advantages when having to select the most suitable polymer-precursor-capsule system for a particular concrete application. In this paper, a modified chloride migration test based on the one prescribed in NT Build 492 has been proposed to support the development of self-healing concrete for marine environments. Four polymer-based HAs have been screened that way, i.e. an in-house developed high-viscosity polyurethane (PU) precursor, a commercial low-viscosity PU precursor, the same commercial PU precursor with addition of accelerator and benzoyl peroxide (BPO), and an in-house developed 2-component acrylate-endcapped precursor + cross-linker. For now, a highly repeatable SHE value of 100% could only be obtained for the second option.


Author(s):  
Liangliang Xia ◽  
Ming Zhou ◽  
Hongjun Tu ◽  
wen Zeng ◽  
xiaoling Yang ◽  
...  

The preparation of room-temperature self-healing polymeric materials with good healing efficiency and high mechanical strength is challenging. Two processes are essential to realise the room-temperature self-healing of materials: (a) a...


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