Prof. Dr. Henk Jonkers gave a lecture about self-healing concrete at the symposium grow.build.repeat., held by the KIT Faculty of Architecture in December 2020. He addresses the question of the amount of concrete being used in the building industry today and provides a solution for environmentally responsive concrete.

video: Aurora Motion Pictures
cut: Hanna Hoss

In his lecture “Concrete Solutions for liveable Cities” at the symposium grow.build.repeat., he describes the worldwide concrete problem and shows his research results on the application of self-healing bacteria-based concrete and self-healing repair mortar. Furthermore he shows other ideas coming out of his research like nature-based ‘bio-receptive’ concrete.

Prof. Dr. Henk Jonkers received his PhD in marine microbiology from the University of Groningen in 1999 and worked as a research associate at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen until 2006. Since then he has been teaching as Associate Professor in the Sustainability Group in the Materials & Environment Department at the CEG Faculty of Delft University of Technology.

His research focuses the interactions between building materials/constructions and the living environment as well as the impact on functional and environmental performance over the entire life cycle. Research on bio-based high-performance building materials such as self-healing concrete and the development of building materials and structures with added environmental benefits through the integration of vegetation ecosystem functions are further key areas of his work.

Further information:
https://tudelft.nl