The Practical Use of Biocement as Self-healing Agent and in Construction Requires a Socio-Ecological Approach

TY - CHAP

T1 - The Practical Use of Biocement as Self-healing Agent and in Construction Requires a Socio-Ecological Approach

AU - Achal, Varenyam

PY - 2021/5/29

Y1 - 2021/5/29

N2 - The migration of increasing population towards urban area demands high number of infrastructures that brings additional load on the environment due to cement usage. It is noteworthy that cement is not a sustainable material and causes 5–7% of global CO2 emission. In addition, many infrastructures suffer from strength and durability problems because of natural or anthropogenic activities during their service life. Nature, on other hand, guides the society and scientific community for sustainable construction through ecologically defined prototypes, such as ant hills, coral reefs or mineralized structures of biological organisms that ultimately inspires for biologically produced (bio) cement. Biocement is the product of biomineralization that can be used as particle replacement to conventional cement or an additive in construction to reduce the dichotomy due to CO2 emission or non-sustainable nature associated with cement. It is important to bring science or scientific research of biocement to the practice by considering factors preventing its implementation for human or environmental welfare, otherwise this science will remain stick to textbooks or journals. At the same time science and technology provided only limited success in biocement practice, thus holistic approach considering social and ecological aspects is highly required. Thus, socio-ecological model is presented in this article for highlighting as well as overcoming barriers and challenges in biocement related research preventing the use of same in practice and fulfilling theory to practice gap.

AB - The migration of increasing population towards urban area demands high number of infrastructures that brings additional load on the environment due to cement usage. It is noteworthy that cement is not a sustainable material and causes 5–7% of global CO2 emission. In addition, many infrastructures suffer from strength and durability problems because of natural or anthropogenic activities during their service life. Nature, on other hand, guides the society and scientific community for sustainable construction through ecologically defined prototypes, such as ant hills, coral reefs or mineralized structures of biological organisms that ultimately inspires for biologically produced (bio) cement. Biocement is the product of biomineralization that can be used as particle replacement to conventional cement or an additive in construction to reduce the dichotomy due to CO2 emission or non-sustainable nature associated with cement. It is important to bring science or scientific research of biocement to the practice by considering factors preventing its implementation for human or environmental welfare, otherwise this science will remain stick to textbooks or journals. At the same time science and technology provided only limited success in biocement practice, thus holistic approach considering social and ecological aspects is highly required. Thus, socio-ecological model is presented in this article for highlighting as well as overcoming barriers and challenges in biocement related research preventing the use of same in practice and fulfilling theory to practice gap.

KW - Nature

KW - Biocement

KW - Environment

KW - Infrastructure

KW - Sustainable construction

U2 - 10.1007/978-981-16-1706-5_1

DO - 10.1007/978-981-16-1706-5_1

M3 - Chapter

SN - 978-981-16-1705-8

SP - 1

EP - 8

BT - Building Materials for Sustainable and Ecological Environment

A2 - Achal, Varenyam

A2 - Chin, Chee Seong

PB - Springer Singapore

ER -