A multi-disciplinary team of Montana State University experts searching for ways to utilize living materials to reduce the building industry’s reliance on cement and concrete was awarded a $3 million Future Research Manufacturing Research grant from the National Science Foundation. Chelsea Heveran, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering in the Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering, is the principal investigator for the four-year project.
The specific goal is to advance ways to make complex and load-bearing structures by using mineral-producing microorganisms. And it includes funding for three graduate student researchers and the establishment of an eco-manufacturing undergraduate student research and training program called Eco-start – which is now recruiting its inaugural cohort. Eco-start students will have the opportunity to work in campus labs and in related industries during the summers.
The construction industry relies heavily on manufacturing cement and concrete to make building materials. And according to the NSF abstract, both require the use of scarce materials and the manufacturing process leaves a high carbon footprint.
The work corresponds closely to concepts published in a paper by Heveran in the Nov. 1 issue of the journal Matter. In this, Heveran discusses the potential to incorporate engineered living materials into building materials to significantly reduce carbon emissions and environmental costs during manufacturing. This paper explores the technical and biological challenges engineers face when attempting to use living materials in high-load applications and suggests that engineers could learn numerous lessons by studying how living bone functions as a load-bearing, self-renewing structure. Heveran and her students study applications for living materials, often in conjunction with MSU’s Center for Biofilm Engineering.
KEY QUOTE:
“This research advances the eco-manufacturing of sustainable building materials using microbes by addressing several key challenges that limit how current biomineralized structures are built, repaired, and recycled.”
— Research abstract
