HDR 2025 Scholarship in Geotechnology and Microbiology

Scholarship Information

Level of study: Postgraduate, Undergraduate / VET

Closing date: 02/28/2025

The students will work in a project that proposes a new cementation technology that has the potential to massively reduce CO2 emission from construction. By emulating nature’s way of building edifices such as corals, stromatolites, and beach rocks, a bio-inspired cementation technology will be developed. A novel bio-sintering process is proposed through successive dissolution and remineralization of limestone utilizing the microbes that create the natural edifices. We shall isolate microbes that have evolved in natural sites where dissolution and re-deposition phenomena are observed. First, we shall demonstrate the phenomena separately. We shall combine the processes to demonstrate bio-sintering. A pilot scale setup will be developed to develop the design parameters for bio-sintering in specific applications.