{"id":568611,"date":"2025-11-21T18:41:02","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T21:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=568611"},"modified":"2025-11-21T18:41:02","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T21:41:02","slug":"fixing-cracks-in-concrete-with-lichen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/fixing-cracks-in-concrete-with-lichen\/","title":{"rendered":"Fixing cracks in concrete with lichen"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_568616\" style=\"max-width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright vertical\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-568616 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/RPF-notas-rachaduras-verde-2025-07-800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"792\" srcset=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/RPF-notas-rachaduras-verde-2025-07-800.jpg 800w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/RPF-notas-rachaduras-verde-2025-07-800-250x248.jpg 250w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/RPF-notas-rachaduras-verde-2025-07-800-700x693.jpg 700w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/RPF-notas-rachaduras-verde-2025-07-800-120x119.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"media-credits-inline\">L\u00e9o Ramos Chaves\u2009\/\u2009Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span>Microorganisms could seal gaps in concrete with calcium carbonate<span class=\"media-credits\">L\u00e9o Ramos Chaves\u2009\/\u2009Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p>A team led by mechanical engineer Congrui Grace Jin of Texas A&amp;M University, USA, selected microbial communities similar to lichens\u2014which grow using only air and light\u2014that when added to cement mixtures, can produce concrete capable of sealing its own cracks. The formulation includes three combinations of filamentous cyanobacteria (<em>Anabaena inaequalis<\/em> and <em>Nostoc punctiforme<\/em>) that fix carbon dioxide and nitrogen from the atmosphere, as well as a filamentous fungus (<em>Trichoderma reesei<\/em>), which attracts calcium ions and promotes the formation of calcium carbonate\u2014the same material found in eggshells and seashells. In lab tests, this symbiotic combination was able to fix cracks in concrete by depositing large amounts of calcium carbonate, bonding the concrete and preventing the fissures from growing. Another approach to self-healing concrete is the use of bacteria, but they need to be sprayed directly onto the cracks (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S2352492825006051?via%3Dihub\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Materials Today Communications<\/em><\/a>, March).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lichens mixed into concrete repair cracks","protected":false},"author":475,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1651],"tags":[249],"coauthors":[785],"class_list":["post-568611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes","tag-nanotechnology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":568620,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568611\/revisions\/568620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568611"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=568611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}