What stops the thing from growing indefinitely, but also fast enough when damaged to return to the "original" state?<p>If there's a "surface coating" which when damaged, causes the "inside" to "grow" again, how does the coating repair itself, to stop the "inside" from growing beyond the original surface?
I wonder how efficient it is. If a square meter of the material were to be placed in 1000w/m² sunlight, how many grams of carbon can it scrub per hour? Can the carbon be easily recovered? How many break/repair cycles can this material do without deforming or degrading?
Lime-based mortar has been doing so since the Roman times.<p>Of course this is development is different, but it's still not scalable in any way. If your material isn't alive it won't last long, the catalysts always decompose or degenerate fast.
> The chloroplasts are not alive but catalyze the reaction of carbon dioxide to glucose.<p>That reaction also consumes water. So, would you need to regularly mist the material with a spray bottle to keep the self-healing going?
> While there has been widespread effort to develop self-healing materials that could mimic this ability of biological organisms, the researchers say, these have all required an active outside input to function. Heating, UV light, mechanical stress, or chemical treatment were needed to activate the process. By contrast, these materials need nothing but ambient light, and they incorporate mass from carbon in the atmosphere, which is ubiquitous.<p>Mechanical stress, I wonder if such materials would serve well as coating atop an office floor to reduce the indoor co2. Every step that gets taken would activate the process. Probably won't make as much of a difference as a decent AC unit though.
Wait, how long does it take to 'heal'? Didn't see that in the article, and it's pretty crucial with regards as to how useful this can be.
So, the self filling water bottles don't work because of the energy required to extract H2O out of the air is excessive (think how much electricity is required for your dehumidifier) ... Extracting carbon from the CO2 in the air is going to need a heap more, I would have thought.<p>I'm not a physicist though, would be glad to be proven wrong.<p>It does sound very much like a "solar freaking roadways" type effort though.
The ultimate war in misted battlefields (trumpet sound):<p>Fancy polymer made of delicious sugar!!!...<p>... against lichens and bacteria from the badass planet earth!!!.<p>Guess who of both will release chemicals, distroy their opponent and feed on their guts after being trained for millions of years in extreme survival (colonizing lava fields and sun scorched areas)?
Anyone in the field that can say as to when this is actually feasible? It says that they have investigated production by the ton but went back to improving its properties. Are we talking 10 years? 20? 50? I just want a ballpark estimate.
The cynic in me expects to click this and find an article about trees.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifk6iuLQk28" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifk6iuLQk28</a>