A team of materials scientists and chemists at ETH Zürich has developed a way to make “living” ceramics that can detect small amounts of formaldehyde and capture carbon dioxide from the air. In their project, reported in the journal Advanced Materials, the group developed a multi-step process that allows bacteria to grow in a ceramic material.
Prior research has shown that biofilms, hydrogels, and polymers can be given lifelike properties by seeding them with microorganisms. This has led to the development of materials that can be used to deliver therapies or to degrade toxins. In this new effort, the research team has done something similar with a ceramic material.
The work involved first 3D printing stacked, ceramic, spiral structures that could stand on their own. To allow for adding bacteria, the structures were printed with pits on their outer surfaces, ranging in size from 20 to 130 µm. The purpose of the smaller pits was to give bacteria a place to live within the ceramic material. The larger pits were used as a way to channel nutrients to the bacteria.
To further ensure the bacteria could feed for an extended period of time, they set the structures in shallow pools of nutrient solutions. As the water in the solutions evaporated, the nutrients were pulled up to the pits containing the nutrients via capillary action. The bacteria were then allowed to multiply, filling the pores that had been designed for them. Testing showed they could survive without further nutrients for up to two weeks.
The research team used different types of bacteria for different purposes—with photosynthetic cyanobacteria, for example, the structure could serve as a CO2 extraction device, pulling the gas from the air. They also tried Escherichia coli and found that they made the structure a formaldehyde detector.
The researchers suggest their work demonstrates the possibilities of using porous ceramics as a promising platform for the design and creation of functional living materials.
More information:
Alessandro Dutto et al, Living Porous Ceramics for Bacteria‐Regulated Gas Sensing and Carbon Capture, Advanced Materials (2024). DOI: 10.1002/adma.202412555
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‘Living’ ceramics utilize bacteria for gas sensing and carbon capture (2024, December 20)
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