Sustainable Buildings

Concrete is the most consumed resource on earth next to water. Curtin researchers are developing a self-healing and sustainable biocement using natural microbes that could be utilised in a range of building construction and restoration applications.

In this episode, David is joined by civil engineer Professor Abhijit Mukherjee and construction biotechnologist Dr Navdeep Dhami to explain what biocement is, how it works and how it can help us to build better in the future.

  • What are biominerals and where are they found? (3.04)
  • How biocement can address environmental challenges (6.09)
  • The advantages and drawbacks of biocement compared to traditional construction materials (9.13)
  • Current and proposed applications of biocement (13.25)
  • Industry and economic challenges of biocement technology (18.26)
  • How to ‘coexist with nature’ by harnessing natural processes to ensure a sustainable future (21.53)

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Music: OKAY by 13ounce Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0 Music promoted by Audio Library

You can read the full transcript for the episode here.