Self Healing, Enzymatic, Bio-concrete to Fight Climate Change

Concrete production is currently growing at a rate of 2.5% annually and is expected to grow by $332.2 USD billion between 2020-2024 3. Around 5 billion tons of concrete is manufactured each year: a staggering one cubic meter every year for every person on Earth. “Over the next 40 years, the world is expected to build 230 billion square meters in new construction, adding the equivalent of Paris to the planet every single week” said Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency. Given that the concrete industry is responsible for a staggeringly high 9% of carbon dioxide emissions, there is a need for concrete reform and new technologies to mitigate this effect for this critical substance used worldwide. Although very strong, concrete can be brittle and prone to fracture. Current repair methods are inadequate resulting in a weakened material, furthermore, human repair intervention requires even more material and adds to the excessive emissions already produced by concrete production. Our company, Enzymatic Inc. has developed an enzyme based, biological self healing concrete that can heal on its own AND captures carbon dioxide directly out of the air in the process. The innovation of our technology is the use of the biological enzyme Carbonic Anhydrase (CA) in construction material. The use of CA has 3 major advances over current methods. First, as described below, CA uses ambient CO2 and H2O to produce calcium carbonate. This consumption of CO2, in addition to the ability to repair rather than replace concrete, makes our technology green and beneficial to the environment. Additionally, the local consumption of water helps dehydrate the area preventing corrosion. Second, because enzymes are catalysts, they are not consumed in the reaction meaning that remain in the concrete for their entire lifetime. Thus, only trace amounts are required. The low amount of enzyme needed makes this technology inexpensive. Third, CA is a natural product found in all life forms making it safe and nontoxic, in contrast to some repair compounds currently being used.