 INTRODUCTION

Concrete is a vital use building material that is an absolutely essential

component of public infrastructure and most buildings. It is most
effective when reinforced by steel bar, mainly because its tensile
strength without reinforcement is considerably low relative to its
compressive strength. It is also a very brittle material with low
tolerance for strain, so it is commonly expected to crack with time.
These cracks, while not compromising structural integrity immediately,
do expose the steel reinforcement to the elements, leading to corrosion
which heightens maintenance costs and compromises structural
integrity over long periods of time. That being said, concrete is a high
maintenance material. It cracks and suffers serious wear and tear over
the decades of its expected term of service. It is not flexible and cannot
handle significant amounts of strain.

Self-healing concrete in general seeks to rectify these flaws in order to

extend the service life of any given concrete structure. There is a
material in the realm of self-healing concrete in development, now, that
can solve many of the problems commonly associated with standard
concrete. This material is bacterial self-healing concrete. Self-healing
concrete consists of a mix with bacteria incorporated into the concrete
and calcium lactate food to support those bacteria when they become
active.

 SELF BACTERIAL HEALING CONCRETE

1
 Fig1- Self-healing bacterial concrete

Autogenously crack-healing capacity of concrete has been recognized

in several recent studies. Mainly micro cracks with widths typically in
the range of 0.05 to 0.1mm have been observed to become completely
sealed particularly under repetitive dry/wet cycles. The mechanism of
this autogenously healing is chiefly due to secondary hydration of non-
or partially reacted cementing particles present in the concrete matrix.
Due to capillary forces water is repeatedly drawn into micro cracks
under changing wet and dry cycles, resulting in expansion of hydrated
cement particles due to the formation of calcium silicate hydrates and
calcium hydroxide. Larger sized cracks can only be partially filled due
to the limited amount of non-reacted cement particles present, thus
resulting in only a thin layer of hydration products on the crack surface.
Although bacteria, and particularly acid-producing bacteria, have been
traditionally considered as harmful organisms for concrete, recent
research has shown that specific species such as ureolytic and other
bacteria can actually be useful as a tool to repair cracks or clean the
surface of concrete.

 BACTERIA USED
Cement and water have a pH value of up to 13 when mixed together, usually a hostile
Environment for life, most organisms die in an environment with a pH value of 10 or
above. Different types of bacteria were incorporated into a small block of concrete. Each
concrete block would be left for two months to set hard. Then the block would be

2
 pulverized and the remains tested to see whether the bacteria had survived. It was found
that the only group of bacteria that were able to survive were the ones that produced
spores comparable to plant seeds. They are namely Bacillus-cohnii, Bacillus-filla,
Bacillus-parturii

Fig2- Bacillus cohnii Fig3- Bacillus filla Fig4- Bacillus parturii

 Self-healing bacterial concrete can be prepared in two ways.
 In the direct application method, bacterial spores and calcium lactate is added into
concrete directly when mixing of concrete is done.
 By encapsulation method the bacteria and its food i.e. calcium lactate, are placed inside
treated clay pallets and concrete is prepared about 6% of the clay pellets are added for
making bacterial concrete

 BIOCONCRETE MECHANISM
When the concrete is mixed with bacteria (bacillus subtilus), the bacteria go into a
dormant state, a lot like seeds. All the bacteria need exposure to the air to activate their
functions. Any cracks that should occur provide the necessary exposure. When the cracks
form, bacteria very close proximity to the crack, starts precipitating calcite crystals. When
a concrete structure is damaged and water starts to seep through the cracks that appear in
the concrete, the spores of the bacteria germinate on contact with the water and nutrients.
Having been activated, the bacteria start to feed on the calcium lactate nutrient. Such
spores have extremely thick cell walls that enable them to remain intact for up to 200
years while waiting for a better environment to germinate.

 ADVANTAGES OF SELF-HEALING CONCRETE

3
 Incorporation of the agent in the concrete will be relatively cheap as well aseasy when the
aggregate is immobilized in porous light weight aggregate prior to addition to the
concrete mixture.
 The self-healing bacterial concrete helps in reduced maintenance and repair costs of steel
reinforced concrete structures.
 Oxygen is an agent that can induce corrosion, as bacteria feeds on oxygen tendency for
the corrosion of reinforcement can be reduced.
 Self-healing bacteria can be used in places where humans find it difficult to reach for the
maintenance of the structures. Hence it reduces risking of human life in dangerous areas
and also increases the durability of the structure.
 Formation of crack will be healed in the initial stage itself thereby increasing the service
life of the structure than expected life.

 DISADVANTAGES OF SELF-HEALING CONCRETE

 If the volume of self-healing agents (bacteria and calcium lactate) mixed becomes greater
than 20%, the strength of the concrete is reduced.

 Preparation of self-healing concrete needs the requirement of bacteria and calcium lactate.
Preparation of calcium lactate from milk is costlier. Hence preparation of self-healing
concrete costs double than conventional concrete.

 CURRENT RESEARCHES

There will be full-scale outdoor testing of self-healing concrete structures. Structures will
be fitted with some panels of self-healing concrete and others with conventional concrete
so that the behaviour of the two can be compared.
The research will test two systems. The first technique will see bacteria and nutrients
applied to the structure as a self-healing mortar, which can be used to repair large-scale
damage.
The second technique will see the bacteria and food Nutrients dissolved into a liquid that
is sprayed onto the surface of the concrete from where it can seep into the crack

 APPLICATIONS
Self-healing bacterial concrete can be used for sectors such as tunnel-lining, structural
basement walls, highway bridges, concrete floors and marine structures.

4
 Fig5- Marine structure Fig6- Base wall

Fig7- Concrete flooring Fig8- Tunnel lining

Fig9- Highway Bridge

 CONCLUSION

5
The bacteria which are known to be alkali-resistant, i.e. they grow in natural
environments characterized by a relatively high pH (10-11). In addition, these strains can
produce spores which are resting cells with sturdy cell walls that protect them against
extreme environmental mechanical- and chemical stresses. Therefore these specific
bacteria may have the potential to resist the high internal concrete pH values(12-13 for
Portland cement-based concrete), and remain viable for a long time as well, spore
viability for up to 200 years is documented. We hypothesized that concrete immobilized
spores of such bacteria may be able to seal cracks by bio mineral formation after being
revived by water and growth nutrients entering freshly formed cracks. Although the exact
nature of the produced minerals still needs to be clarified, they appear morphologically
related to calcite precipitates. The mechanism of bacterially-mediated calcite production
likely precedes via organic carbon respiration with oxygen what results in carbonate ion
production under alkaline conditions. The produced carbonate ions which can locally
reach high concentrations at bacterially active 'hot spots' precipitate with excess calcium
ions leaking out of the concrete matrix. This microbial calcium carbonate precipitation
mechanism is well studied and occurs worldwide in natural systems such as oceans, bio
films, microbial mats and stromatolites. For an autonomous self-healing mechanism all
needed reaction components, or self-healing agents, must be present inthe material matrix
to ensure minimal externally needed triggers. To conclude we can state that the
application of bacteria as a self-healing agent in concrete appears promising

6
 REFERENCES
Antonopoulos, S. Self-healing in ECC materials with high content of different
Microfibers and micro particles, MSc Thesis, Delft University of Technology,
2009
De Muynck, W., Debrouwer, D., De Belie, N., Verstraete, W., 2008. Bacterial
Carbonate precipitation improves the durability of cementations materials.
Cement & Concrete Res. 38, 1005–1014.
Bang, S.S., Galinat, J.K., Ramakrishnan, V., 2001. Calcite precipitatioinduced
by polyurethane-immobilized Bacillus pasteurii. Enzyme Microb. Technol. 28,
404-409
Jonkers, HM & Schlangen, E. (2009a). Bacteria-based self-healing concrete.
International journal of restoration of buildings and monuments, 15(4), 255-
265.
.