Biocementation in the production of mortar: the role of biocementation bacteria

Abstract

The use of biocementation is a technique widely used in the civil construction to repair pathologies, such as cracks and fissures. This technique is linked to the bacterial activity (urolytic and/or carbonategenic), responsible for the conversion of urea into carbonate, correcting problems in the structure. In this sense, the aim of this study was to identify the main ureolytic bacteria capable of precipitating calcium carbonate in mortar, one of the most widely applied construction areas, as well as to evaluate the performance of each microorganism in changing the physical and mechanical properties of the mortar. For this, a bibliographic search was carried out in the database of Scopus, Scielo, Web of Since, as well as in the academic portal of CAPES. The results show that the main bacteria associated with the mortar biocementation technique is the genus Bacillus sp. Parameters and standards for evaluating the performance of the different bacteria used between the studies were not identified. However, evaluations related to mortar strength were present in the vast majority of researches. The use of biocementation via bacterial activity proved to be an important strategy that promotes improvements in strength, compression, water absorption potential and porosity of the mortar