EFRI ELiS: Mechanically Adaptive Living Structural Materials

建筑材料的制造和应用是能源密集型的，产生大量的美元成本和碳排放。与此同时，建筑运营本身也是能源密集型的，尤其是在供暖和制冷方面。在未来几十年中，将需要新的，更可持续的，更高性能的建筑材料。该项目的长期目标是建立在制造过程中能源密集度较低的建筑材料技术，并在建成建筑物的使用寿命内降低加热/冷却成本。该项目的具体目标是通过提高材料满足结构需求的能力来提高用于绝缘的可持续材料的性能。除了技术成就外，拟议的工作还包括审议将此类材料纳入建筑规范所带来的法律的挑战。此外，该项目还为“工程生活材料”这一新兴领域建立了一门研究生课程，其中包括参与大学之间的跨校园教学。从拟议的工作中获得的见解将被纳入每个参与大学的代表性不足群体的初中和高中学生的教育计划。 拟议的研究通过在机械需求最大的区域增加密度和刚度来创造适应使用过程中机械应力的材料，从而推进与可持续生活建筑材料相关的技术。该项目的重点是在大麻混凝土中开发机械诱导的生物矿化，大麻混凝土是一种负碳排放的可持续建筑材料。拟议的工作将通过建立向居民微生物提供营养所需的流体环境以及与生活建筑材料的有限空间内的尿素分解生物矿化相关的化学环境变化来推进生活建筑材料领域的知识。所提出的工作的一个变革方面是使用机械敏感的细菌，这些细菌只在机械应力最大的位置改变建筑材料的密度和刚度，在需要的位置增加密度和机械性能，同时保持较低的密度区域，具有更好的绝缘能力。多尺度建模以确定在生物矿化过程中在活建筑材料内的微尺度孔隙内产生的营养物和废物的输送，2）使用现有的可持续建筑材料制造机械敏感生物体的试验床，该材料可以受益于增强的机械性能（hempcrete）;以及3）分析活建筑材料的法律的含义，与其它建筑材料不同，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The manufacturing and application of materials used in construction and building materials is energy intensive, generating substantial costs in dollars and carbon emissions. At the same time, building operations themselves are energy intensive, especially when it comes to heating and cooling. In the coming decades, there will be a need for new, more sustainable, and higher-performing building materials. The long-term goal of this project is to establish the technology for building materials that are less energy intensive during manufacturing and also reduce the costs of heating/cooling over the lifetime of the completed building. The specific goal of this project is to enhance the performance of sustainable materials used for insulation by increasing the ability of the material to contribute to the structural demand. In addition to technical achievements, the proposed work includes consideration of the legal challenges associated with the incorporation of such materials into building codes. Additionally, this project establishes a graduate level course for the emerging field of “Engineered Living Materials” that will include cross-campus instruction among the participating universities. Insights from the proposed work will be integrated into educational programs for middle school and high school students from underrepresented groups at each of the participating universities. The proposed research advances technology related to sustainable living building materials by creating materials that adapt to mechanical stresses during use by increasing density and stiffness at regions of greatest mechanical demand. The project focuses on the development of mechanically induced biomineralization in hempcrete, a sustainable building material with negative carbon emissions. The proposed work will advance knowledge in the field of living building materials by establishing the fluid environment necessary for nutrient delivery to resident microbes and the changes in chemical environment associated with ureolytic biomineralization within confined spaces of the living building material. A transformative aspect of the proposed work is the use of mechanically sensitive bacteria that alter the density and stiffness of the building material only at locations of greatest mechanical stress, increasing density and mechanical properties at needed locations while maintaining less dense regions with better insulative capacity This project includes 1) multiscale modeling to determine the transport of nutrients and waste products generated during biomineralization within microscale pores within a living building material, 2) fabrication of test beds of mechanically sensitive organisms using an existing sustainable building material that can benefit from enhanced mechanical performance (hempcrete), and 3) analysis of the legal implications of living building materials, which, unlike other building materials, are purposely designed to change their mechanical performance.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.