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Development on bio-based concrete crack healing in soil exposures: isolation, identification, and characterization of potential bacteria and evaluation of crack healing performance

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Abstract

Undeniably, concrete cracks if not healed on time could cause various durability issues, resulting in high-cost crack repairing strategy. Recently, due to several environmental concerns, bio-based construction materials gained much attention among researchers. In this context, bacterial precipitation of calcium carbonate can be effectively exploited in concrete structures to heal cracks. With this in view, this study focused to isolate bacterial strains from five different locations towards examining the crack healing potential. The investigations were carried out for urease positive test and calcium carbonate precipitate test among the five different isolated bacteria of whom three bacterial species were found to have the needed potential. Using the 16S rRNA molecular gene sequencing, they were identified and subjected to concrete healing inspection using an appropriate nutrient solution. On the 7th day of conventional water curing, bacteria-added concrete cubes were pre-cracked and kept in soil exposures in four different pits for a healing period of 120 days. Filling soil material was supplemented with three different proportions of nutrient and bacterial solution ratios (7:3, 8:2, and 9:1) without any changes in the existing natural water content. A microstructure study revealed that the formation of significant calcium carbonate compounds in bacteria supplemented the concrete specimens. The bacterial pit, having a proportion of 9:1, had showed higher healing efficiency of about 88%, nevertheless while the remaining pits showed only 60% and 66% healing efficiency. The study implied bacteria addition with nutrient supply in soil environment could be highly beneficial for healing cracks in concrete specimens. Consequently, the study’s inference can pave the way for futuristic bio-based processing in construction materials.

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Change history

Abbreviations

m2/kg:

Meter square per kg

mins:

Minutes

kg/m3 :

Kilogram per meter cube

%:

Percentage

°C:

Degree celsius

h:

Hours

g:

Gram

v/v:

Volume per volume

Nos:

Numbers

ml:

Milliliter

ID:

Identification

NCBI:

National Center for Biotechnology Information

rpm:

Revolution per minute

SEM:

Scanning electron microscopy

XRD:

X-ray diffraction

CaCO3 :

Calcium carbonate

RNA:

Ribonucleic acid

DNA:

Deoxyribonucleic acid

pH:

Potential of hydrogen

OD:

Optical density

BP:

Bacterial pit

mm:

Millimeter

cm:

Centimeter

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Funding

This Research work was funded by SASTRA Deemed University under TRR research scheme (Grant no. SASTRA/SoCE/AS/TRR2022).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil Engineering, SASTRA Deemed to be University, Thanjavur, Tamilnadu, India

    Rajesh Anbazhagan & Sumathi Arunachalam

  2. School of Chemical & Biotechnology, SASTRA Deemed to be University, Thanjavur, Tamilnadu, India

    Gowdhaman Dharmalingam

  3. Center of Excellence for Biotechnology and Bioprocess, Department of Chemical Engineering, Addis Ababa Science and Technology University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Venkatesa Prabhu Sundramurthy

Authors
  1. Rajesh Anbazhagan
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  2. Sumathi Arunachalam
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  3. Gowdhaman Dharmalingam
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  4. Venkatesa Prabhu Sundramurthy
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Contributions

Anbazhagan Rajesh: methodology, investigation, writing—original draft. Arunachalam Sumathi: conceptualization, supervision, writing—review and editing. Dharmalingam Gowdhaman: conceptualization, supervision. Sundramurthy Venkatesa Prabhu: methodology, writing—review and editing, validation.

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Correspondence to Sumathi Arunachalam.

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Anbazhagan, R., Arunachalam, S., Dharmalingam, G. et al. Development on bio-based concrete crack healing in soil exposures: isolation, identification, and characterization of potential bacteria and evaluation of crack healing performance. Biomass Conv. Bioref. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-023-04728-2

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