Award-winning, low-footprint brick is grown with sand and bacteria and cuts CO2 cost
Similar to growing plants in a greenhouse, Ginger Krieg Dosier had developed a way to grow bricks out of sand and bacteria, reducing the carbon emission drastically, relative to the dirty process of making old bricks.
Every year, somewhere in the vicinity of 1.3 trillion bricks have been made with old techniques, releasing upwards of 800 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. This new technique requires no fuel to fire the materials and grows bricks at room temperature.
Beginning with sand, a liquid mixture of bacteria, nitrogen, food for the bacteria, a calcium source, and water are added. Over 5 days, the liquid is gradually added until the food and water run out and the sand dries. At that point, it is a concrete brick, with strength comparable to anything that has come before.
This groundbreaking technique has recently netted bioMASON, Dosier's company, $560,000 from the 2013 Postcode Lottery Green Challenge to continue their study and development.