Mechanical engineers at Montana State Univ. (MSU) have developed a living building material with unique regenerative properties.
Bacteria within the material, when kept alive, can continuously grow more material with the addition of a simple medium — sand — and a hydrogel scaffold. This combination produces a building material similar in strength to cement mortar.
The researchers used Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002, a photosynthetic cyanobacterium that consumes carbon dioxide as part of its metabolic process.
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