Dutto Alessandro, Kan Anton, Saraw Zoubeir, Maillard Aline, Zindel Daniel, Studart André R
Complex Materials, Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, Zürich, 8093, Switzerland.
Laboratory of Physical Chemistry, ETH Zürich, Zürich, 8093, Switzerland.
Adv Mater. 2025 Feb;37(5):e2412555. doi: 10.1002/adma.202412555. Epub 2024 Dec 10.
Microorganisms hosted in abiotic structures have led to engineered living materials that can grow, sense, and adapt in ways that mimic biological systems. Although porous structures should favor colonization by microorganisms, they have not yet been exploited as abiotic scaffolds for the development of living materials. Here, porous ceramics are reported that are colonized by bacteria to form an engineered living material with self-regulated and genetically programmable carbon capture and gas-sensing functionalities. The carbon capture capability is achieved using wild-type photosynthetic cyanobacteria, whereas the gas-sensing function is generated utilizing genetically engineered E. coli. Hierarchical porous clay is used as a ceramic scaffold and evaluated in terms of bacterial growth, water uptake, and mechanical properties. Using state-of-the-art chemical analysis techniques, the ability of the living porous ceramics are demonstrated to capture CO directly from the air and to metabolically turn minute amounts of toxic gas into a benign scent detectable by humans.
存在于非生物结构中的微生物已促成了工程化活材料的出现，这些材料能够以模仿生物系统的方式生长、感知和适应。尽管多孔结构有利于微生物定殖，但它们尚未被用作开发活材料的非生物支架。在此，报道了一种多孔陶瓷，其被细菌定殖，从而形成一种具有自我调节和基因可编程的碳捕获及气体传感功能的工程化活材料。碳捕获能力是利用野生型光合蓝细菌实现的，而气体传感功能则是通过基因工程改造的大肠杆菌产生的。分级多孔粘土用作陶瓷支架，并对其细菌生长、吸水性和机械性能进行了评估。使用最先进的化学分析技术，证明了这种活多孔陶瓷能够直接从空气中捕获二氧化碳，并通过代谢将微量有毒气体转化为人类可检测到的良性气味。
