BRITE Pivot: Identifying Premature Deterioration in Cementitious Materials Using Volatilomics

几千年来，医学领域一直利用嗅觉对健康进行定性评估，但最近的研究表明，我们可以利用挥发性有机化合物来进行定量检测和分析。在这个促进工程变革和公平进步的研究思路（BRITE）枢轴项目中，将分析老化混凝土中微生物产生的挥发性有机化合物，无论是未受损的还是正在恶化的。水泥材料是全世界使用最多的建筑材料，是所有其他材料总和的两倍。这些材料可能会过早恶化，尽快对此做出反应可能意味着成功的补救计划，以确保预期的使用寿命。这是满足日益苛刻的可持续发展目标的关键部分。确定这种材料健康的挥发性有机化合物生物标志物将为传感器的开发奠定基础，这些传感器可以提供恶化的早期预警，从而实现更有效的补救/修复策略。微生物也可能对环境压力敏感（例如，气候变化），基于微生物挥发性有机化合物的传感器不仅可以用于监测基础设施的健康状况，还可以提供数据来检测与其他领域相关的环境压力因素。该项目的总体目标是使PI转向疾病检测的挥发物组学领域，并带回新的定量工具来诊断混凝土的非生物环境恶化。挥发性有机化合物代谢物是混凝土相关微生物群落产生的一种经常未使用的化学信息资源，将用于检测和表征混凝土劣化。将使用扫描电子显微镜和能量分散X射线分析、膨胀测量和目视观察来确认使用挥发组学确定的劣化机制。将使用二维气相色谱-飞行时间质谱法分析挥发物。为了确定挥发性有机化合物代谢物是否可以区分不同的变质机制，将使用机器学习（随机森林）分析收集的数据。描述性统计将用于总结和比较样本类别。挥发性有机化合物数据将提交给代谢组学委员会供公众使用。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得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来支持。

For millennia, the medical field has utilized the sense of smell for qualitative assessment of health, but recent research shows we can tap into volatile organic compounds, which create the odors that we perceive, for quantitative detection and analysis. In this Boosting Research Ideas for Transformative and Equitable Advances in Engineering (BRITE) Pivot project, volatile organic compounds produced by the microbes in aged concrete, both undamaged and undergoing deterioration, will be analyzed. Cementitious materials are the most used building materials in the entire world; twice as much as all other materials combined. These materials can undergo premature deterioration and reacting to that as quickly as possible can mean a successful remediation plan that ensures the intended lifespan. This is a key part of meeting increasingly demanding sustainability goals. Identifying volatile organic compound biomarkers of this material’s health will lay the groundwork for the development of sensors that can provide early warnings of deterioration, enabling more effective remediation/repair strategies. Microbes may also be sensitive to environmental stress (e.g., climate change), and a sensor based on microbial volatile organic compounds could be used not only monitor infrastructure health, but to also provide data to detect environmental stressors relevant to other fields.The overall goal of this project is for the PI to pivot to the field of volatilomics for disease detection and bring back new quantitative tools for diagnosing deterioration in the abiotic environment of concrete. Volatile organic compounds metabolites, an oft unused resource of chemical information that are produced by concrete-associated microbial communities, will be used to detect and characterize concrete deterioration. Scanning electron microscopy with energy disperse x-ray analysis, expansion measurements, and visual observations will be used to confirm deterioration mechanisms identified using volatilomics. Volatiles will be analyzed using two-dimensional gas chromatography–time-of-flight mass spectrometry. To determine if the volatile organic compound metabolites can distinguish between different deterioration mechanisms, the data gathered will be analyzed using machine learning (Random Forest). Descriptive statistics will be used to summarize and compare sample classes. Volatile organic compounds data will be submitted to Metabolomics Workbench for public use.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.