Novel Platform Technology
We’ve been hard at work developing our novel platform biobinding system. We use naturally occurring bacteria that are capable of doing something amazing: they grow stone. Calcium carbonate to be more specific, the main component of limestone. By harnessing these bacteria to grow calcium carbonate crystals amongst various different aggregates, biomass wastes, and natural fibres, we can create a whole range of different materials with unique properties. The amazing thing? Thanks to our bacterial co-workers, we can do this with incredibly low energy input: the process occurs near room temperature and pressure.
Innovation for Scalability
We’re creating solutions we want to be available to everyone, which is why we’ve focused our time on creating scalable manufacturing processes. We’ve reduced our moulding times from days to just a few hours, unlocking scalability for mass manufacturing. Despite using microbes for our process, our materials are anything but micro! We’re setting up manufacturing for 610x1220mm boards, and have full size panels in our sights.
Spectrum of Uses
We can use our binding process to create a whole host of different materials, with a range of unique, useful and tunable properties. Materials produced using our process are naturally water resistant, with potential for application even within high moisture environments, including bathrooms. Thanks to good water vapour permeability, our materials are suitable for use within modern vapour open construction systems, which helps prevent damp and improves environmental conditions for healthy living. The binder itself is fire resistant to up to 700C. Beyond wall cladding options (check out our applications page) our materials have applications within interior design products, furnishings, tiles, architectural mouldings, and more.
Local, Circular
We’re developing products with circularity in mind, by utilising byproducts from other local industries as inputs into our process. Stone fines are an abundant resource, over 50 million tonnes are produced each year in the UK alone. We can use this waste product as an aggregate in our process, and by selecting different rock types can get a variety of final aesthetics. Agricultural byproducts are another source of material, including various straws, miscanthus and hemp hurds. These biomass materials absorb atmospheric carbon over their lifecycle, which if used within our materials can act as a carbon store.
​
Our binder is non toxic, which means that materials which are based on agricultural byproducts can be composted at the end of life (calcium carbonate actually acts as a soil conditioner here), whilst stone based compositions can be fragmented and recycled back through our process.