Bioconcrete strength, durability, permeability, recycling and effects on human health: a review

Abstract

Concrete has become as one of the common material in the construction sector, which makes it of great interest to the researchers in pursuit for the production of concrete with better properties. This is mainly because the existing concrete has several limitations in terms of strength, ductility, durability and resistance to cracking. To overcome this problem with the use of bioconcrete, it can self-heal and also posses other value added features like high durability, increased strength and less water absorption capacity. Even though several studies to date have been focused on the development of bioconcrete but the aspects of advantage and disadvantages using bioconcrete has not been discussed so far. The objective of this study is to review the positive and negative impacts of bioconcrete application in the aspect of strength, durability, permeability, recycling and its effects on human health. A systematic review has been used to review some of the relevant and recently published works in this area. The diverse advantages has been mainly covered like; increasing the concrete durability, increasing the concrete strength, increasing of concrete permeability, and ability of biological concrete for recycling. The effect of biological concrete on human health as one of the main disadvantages using bioconcrete has also been covered. The findings of this paper can be considered significant for the stakeholders in the construction sector, as well as the engineers in gaining insight towards the potential use of biological concrete in the field of construction, considering both the merits and demerits of using biological concrete. As a conclusion, the research paper highlights several advantages and disadvantages of bioconcrete that helps to predict the future commercial application of bioconcrete in the construction industry.