Effect of self-healing on zeolite-immobilized bacterial cementitious mortar composites

Abstract Concrete is the commonly used building material and has a high tendency to develop cracks. Due to these crack formations, concrete service life and high replacement cost declined significantly. Although different types of methods are available to heal the cracks, it is impossible to stop crack formation. It has been observed that some existing concrete healing methods, such as chemicals and polymers, are the sources of the environmental health risks and effective only for a short time period. Therefore eco-friendly and prolonged treatment methods are in high demand. Self-healing method of concrete with a microbe is eco-friendly as well as has an ability to repair prolonged, fast, and active cracks. This research presents a summary of the microbial procedures to improve the self-healing capacity for active and independent cracks. In this overview, zeolite-immobilized bacteria have been used as a carrier material, which is generally present in the concrete to protect bacteria in an increased pH environment. The activity of zeolite bacteria has been explored with a view to study the prospects of generating healing compounds. The self-healing capacity of the normal and fibre-reinforced zeolite-immobilized mortar has been decided on the basis of the confining strength and the development of permeable properties of the time period of cracked specimen’s with morphological characterization of crack healing compounds by using X-ray diffraction, energy dispersion spectrometer and scanning electron microscopy.