BioMason’s bricks “grown” with sand and bacteria to hit the market next year

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BioMason’s bricks “grown” with sand and bacteria to hit the market next year

BioMason’s efforts, under the directions of founder and CEO Ginger Krieg Dosier, have been garnering attention in the green construction industry for several years. In 2013, the company won a $560,000 prize in the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge. Since that time, the company has been perfecting its zero emission, zero waste production techniques and working on scalability. The company runs a pilot plant in Durham, NC which is capable of producing 1,500 bricks per week, but they’ll need to make a lot more if they really want to shake up the industry – and they do.

Related: Award-winning BioMason grows bricks from sand and bacteria to reduce CO2 emissions

Traditional bricks, which are also made from sand and binding agents, have to be “fired” for three to five days, a process which generates approximately 800 million tons of carbon emissions each year. BioMason’s biobricks take only two or three days to ‘grow’ and eliminate the emissions altogether. What’s more, Dosier says her company’s bricks can even absorb pollution, making them an active agent in the war against climate change. By replacing traditional bricks with a grown version, BioMason aims to make a dent in the enormous carbon dioxide emissions produced by the construction industry, which accounts for around 40 percent of global emissions.

Via Clean Technica

Images via BioMason

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Easily able to fit in the human hand, modular, and strong, bricks are used in over 80 percent of global construction. According to Dosier and the Carbon War Room, 1.23 trillion bricks are created annually worldwide. It is estimated the fabrication of bricks emit over 800,000,000 tons of CO2 each year.

Dosier starts with sand as a substrate for her bricks due to its great natural abundance. Next, a liquid cement is prepared that includes bacteria to provide an environment for crystals to form, a nitrogen source, food for the bacteria, a calcium source, and water. The solution is placed over a bed of sand in a mold and repeatedly added over five days until a solid material has formed. once the food and water source run out, the bacteria die. The irrigation solution is then fully recycled in a closed loop system to save water resources and recapture a byproduct of the bacteria as a natural fertilizer.

Currently, Dosier is working with teams in the US and UAE to scale up her process. They have found that the methods for growing bricks are similar to cultivating plants in greenhouses. In addition to the 2013 Postcode Lottery Green Challenge award, Biomason was the recipient of Metropolis magazine’s $10,000 Next Generation Design award in 2010.

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Award-winning biomason grows bricks from sand and bacteria to reduce CO2 emissions                                

It takes an enormous amount of energy and resources to produce simple building materials such as concrete, bricks, and asphalt – however Ginger Krieg Dosier has developed a low-impact way to simply grow building blocks instead! Her award-winning company Biomason recently received 500,000 EUR (about $560,000 USD) from the 2013 Postcode Lottery Green Challenge to continue the groundbreaking work of producing bricks from sand and bacteria.

+ Biomason

Via Co.Exist

Images via Siddharth Siva