Biology subjects

Royne, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Royne, A..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2020

Experimental study of microbial induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) in the presence of CaCO3 seeds

Microbial-induced calcium carbonate precipitation (MICP) is a biological process inducing biomineralization of CaCO3. This can be used to form a solid, concrete-like material. To be able to use MICP successfully for producing solid materials, it is important to understand the formation process of the material in detail. It is well known, that crystallization surfaces can influence the precipitation process. Therefore, we present in this contribution a systematic study investigating the influence of calcite seeds on the MICP processes. We focus on the pH changes during the crystallization process measured with absorption spectroscopy and on the optical density (OD) signal to analyze the precipitation process. Furthermore, optical microscopy was used to visualize the precipitation processes in the sample and connect them to changes in pH and OD. We show that there is a significant difference in the pH evolution between samples with and without calcite seeds present and that the shape of the pH evolution and the changes in OD can give detailed information about the mineral precipitation and transformations. In the presented experiments we show that amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) can also precipitate in the presence of initial calcite seeds, which can have consequences for consolidated MICP materials.

biophysics↗

bioRxiv2020

Microbial-induced calcium carbonate precipitation: An experimental toolbox for in situ and real-time investigation of micro-scale pH evolution

Concrete is the second most consumed product by humans, after water. However, the production of cement, which is used as a binding material in concrete, causes more than 5% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and has therefore a significant contribution to climate change and global warming. Due to increasing environmental awareness and international climate goals, there is a need for emission-reduced materials, that can replace conventional concrete in certain applications. One path to produce a solid, concrete-like construction material is microbial-induced calcium carbonate precipitation (MICP). As a calcium source in MICP, crushed limestone, which mainly consists out of CaCO3, can be dissolved with acids, for example lactic acid. The pH evolution during crystallization and dissolution processes provides important information about kinetics of the reactions. However, previous research on MICP has mainly been focused on macro-scale pH evolution and on characterization of the finished material. To get a better understanding of MICP it is important to be able to follow also local pH changes in a sample. In this work we present a new method to study processes of MICP at micro-scale in situ and in real time. We present two different methods to monitor the pH changes during the precipitation process of CaCO3. In the first method, the average pHs of small sample volumes are measured in real time, and pH changes are subsequently correlated with processes in the sample by comparing to optical microscope results. The second method is introduced to follow local pH changes at a grain scale in situ and in real time. Furthermore, local pH changes during the dissolution of CaCO3 crystals are monitored. We demonstrate that these two methods are powerful tools to investigate pH changes for both MICP precipitation and CaCO3 dissolution for knowledge-based improvement of MICP-based material properties. Graphical TOC Entry O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=81 SRC="FIGDIR/small/042168v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (21K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@dad9bcorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@ce9fborg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1d583b8org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@bab03a_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG

biophysics↗

bioRxiv2019

Towards a low CO2 emission building material employing bacterial metabolism in a two-step process of limestone dissolution and recrystallization: The bacterial system and prototype production

The production of concrete for construction purposes is a major source of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. One promising avenue towards a more sustainable construction industry is to make use of naturally occurring mineral-microbe interactions, such as microbial-induced carbonate precipitation (MICP), to produce solid materials. In this paper, we present a new process where calcium carbonate in the form of powdered limestone is transformed to a binder material (termed BioZEment) through microbial dissolution and recrystallization. For the dissolution step, a suitable bacterial strain, closely related to Bacillus pumilus, was isolated from soil near a limestone quarry. We show that this strain produces organic acids from glucose, inducing the dissolution of calcium carbonate in an aqueous slurry of powdered limestone. In the second step, the dissolved limestone solution is used as the calcium source for MICP in sand packed syringe moulds. The amounts of acid produced and calcium carbonate dissolved are shown to depend on the amount of available oxygen as well as the degree of mixing. Precipitation is induced through the pH increase caused by the hydrolysis of urea, mediated by the enzyme urease, which is produced in situ by the bacterium Sporosarcina pasteurii DSM33. The degree of successful consolidation of sand by BioZEment was found to depend on both the amount of urea and the amount of glucose available in the dissolution reaction.

microbiology↗