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Lab-grown bricks offer potential low-carbon building material

Lab-grown bricks offer potential low-carbon building material

Prototype uses bacteria to grow a brick in a mold.


By Peter Fabris, Contributing Editor | September 30, 2022
Grow Bricks
Courtesy Pexels.

A team of students at the University of Waterloo in Canada have developed a process to grow bricks using bacteria.

The process, which works at room temperature, offers a new low-carbon way to fabricate bricks. The brick-growing process starts by introducing bacteria to a nutrient broth.

Recycled sand or demolition waste can be mixed in to create the Bio-Brick. The result is a product that is as strong and affordable as bricks traditionally used in construction sites today and can easily be grown onsite for any project, the product’s developers say.

The technology, still in the prototype phase, was named a runner-up for the James Dyson Award.
 

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