A team of researchers at Princeton University has found inspiration from seashells in designing a more flexible and resistant cement.
As Interesting Engineering reported, the team increased resistance to cracking in materials such as concrete by mimicking the structure of nacre, also known as mother-of-pearl, which is found naturally inside certain oyster and abalone shells.
Nacre is made up of hexagonal slabs of the hard mineral aragonite with grooved gaps in between cushioned by layers of soft biopolymers. By experimenting with cement in similar shapes and using polyvinyl siloxane as the soft layer, the team achieved a material that's "17 times more crack-resistant than standard cement and 19 times more able to stretch and deform without breaking."
Unlike more resilient materials such as wood and steel, cement is traditionally brittle unless reinforced, as the Interesting Engineering report details. With brick-and-mortar-style layers of hard and soft materials, this cement can handle heavy mechanical stress without losing its structural integrity.
This new "stretchy" and crack-resistant process could reduce the amount of cement necessary for construction projects and lead to longer-lasting structures.
Concrete, which is made up of cement and a pulverized blend of materials such as stone and sand, is one of the most ubiquitously consumed products in the world outside of water. Its production is also notorious for generating planet-warming pollution, so much so that it makes up 8% of global emissions, as the Princeton Student Climate Initiative detailed.
This research and related studies could help mitigate the material's impact on the environment and play a major role in developing more sustainable building practices.
Other projects have found green solutions to concrete production, from storing carbon dioxide as mineralized carbon blocks or seashell dust to creating climate-neutral processes for manufacturing the material.
Results from testing these nacre-like composites have proved successful, and the Princeton team plans to dig further into optimizing the design.
As assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering Reza Moini outlined, "We are only scratching the surface; there will be numerous design possibilities to explore and engineer the constitutive hard and soft material properties, the interfaces, and the geometric aspects that play into the fundamental size effects in construction materials."
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