The Concrete That Heals Itself: How Synthetic Lichen Could Reshape Our World
I had to pay $3,000 recently to redo the driveway in my backyard. While the concrete guys were here I also had them do the sidewalk in front of my house (there were some cracks). It was pricey for someone working doubles to keep up with the mortgage, and the whole time I wished the concrete could just be like a tree and grow to fix itself.
Think of my entertainment when I read that science has been working on a concrete that breathes in sunlight, takes in rain, and mends itself, the way moss reclaims stone, the way nature always has.
This is the story of concrete that heals itself (that would’ve been super useful for me about a month ago).
A synthetic lichen that drinks in sunlight, air, and water, and grows into the wound of a broken surface, patching it, rebuilding it, and remembering that life was always the original engineer.
We’re just struggling to recreate the bigger miracle that is life.
What Did Scientists Actually Create?
In 2025, a research team led by Congrui Grace Jin (Assistant Professor, Dept. of Engineering Technology & Industrial Distribution, Texas A&M University) unveiled a completely novel self-healing concrete system powered by a synthetic lichen, a sort of symbiotic pairing of cyanobacteria and filamentous fungi. Cyanobacteria are microscopic organisms that use sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to produce energy through photosynthesis, essentially like tiny living solar panels. Filamentous fungi are thread-like fungi that grow in long strands called hyphae, acting like natural scaffolding that helps minerals and microbes attach and build structures.
I felt like I needed to define those guys for you because I had no idea what they were myself.
So in this mixture, the cyanobacteria harvest CO₂ and sunlight, while the fungi attract calcium ions and produce calcium carbonate (CaCO₃), which deposits itself inside cracks and seals them. No external nutrients or human intervention required at all, which is the dream of homeowners with cracks in their pavement (speaking from experience).
Published in Materials Today Communications, this new system demonstrated lab-scale repair of concrete cracks entirely using air, light and water.
Think of it as green glue, but made from a process more biological than chemical.
While the technology is still in its early stages, it seems super encouraging and speaks to the shift toward infrastructure that heals itself rather than waiting to be repaired.
Lichen in nature is already brilliant.
It’s a symbiotic relationship between algae and fungi, one feeding, the other shielding. Together, they can survive on sheer rock faces, ancient tombs, and even the surfaces of space stations. I like to think of them as happy in their relationship as me and my husband are in ours.
Scientists took inspiration from that and created a synthetic lichen-like organism using engineered microbe colonies like tiny systems programmed to react to environmental triggers.
When a crack forms, the material senses a break in structure, or a change in the light exposure, while noticing a difference in moisture retention.
Then, like nature’s call to action, it begins to fill in the gap, not with cement, but with biomass.
(If the idea of synthetic life designed to solve ancient problems fascinates you, this piece on AI regenerating dire wolves explores how we’re blending biology and code to bring back what we’ve lost, and maybe even heal what’s broken.)
Why This Changes Everything
Most infrastructure is designed to die; bridges crack, roads buckle, sidewalks crumble and cost thousands of dollars to repair.
But what if our cities could age like forests instead of bones?
This concrete isn’t just healing, it’s biologically aligned with the environment. It absorbs carbon while it resists erosion. It wants to live.
I love to think about buildings that repair themselves after an earthquake, or highways that smooth over with rain, and sidewalks that moss up with intelligence instead of mold.
Image if we could pair this concrete that heals itself with the cement that is being turned into a battery? The future would be self-sustaining and actually good for the enviroment!
The Philosophy of a Healing City
There’s something poetic here beyond the tech (sorry, you knew I had to go there).
For centuries, humans built with permanence in mind, but nothing is truly permanent. Pyramids crumble in their ancient beds, and don’t even get me started on how easily modern buildings collapse in on themselves.
So we became patchers, repairers, rebuilders, and we tore down and poured new foundations every single time.
But this material forgives and adjusts.
It welcomes entropy, and grows around it like a hug.
Healing was never supposed to be a demolition job.
This concrete echoes another wonder we explored: glowing plants that harness light without electricity. Both are part of a new vision: cities designed with nature as a blueprint, not an afterthought.
Scientists are now testing this concrete in coastal erosion zones (makes sense because of all the moisture in the air), cracked military infrastructure, historic buildings too fragile to restore with machines, and even in some urban planning projects in drought-prone areas.
What’s stunning is that it doesn’t require machinery, just some air, sunlight, and time.
Like a garden, or my tomato plants, a scar fading, the metaphors are endless, but I won’t bore you with them for too long.
Not Just for Aesthetics, But Safety
Self-healing materials like this aren’t just beautiful, they save lives. In earthquakes, early micro-fractures often go unnoticed until collapse, while bridges wear from within before visual signs appear, and sidewalks tend to crumble, trip, and injure before anyone fills the forms.
But now the crack can literally fill itself.
Now the wound can close itself without paperwork or thousands of dollars from our pockets.
It’s medicine for cement.
What if the future isn’t glass and steel, but moss and memory?
Disclaimer: This article covers experimental materials science research. It may not be commercially available and is not a construction recommendation.
Other Reads You Might Enjoy:
The Fiber-Optic Forest: How Trees Might Power the Next Energy Grid
The Building That Breathes: How Moss Bricks Are Changing the Future of Architecture
When Lightning Becomes Glass: The Chemistry, Beauty, and Fury of Fulgurite
The Fungus in the Backpack: A Quiet Arrest, a Toxic Threat, and the Strange Future of Biosecurity
Rebuilding the Ocean’s Bones: How 3D Printing Is Saving Australia’s Coral Reefs
The Forest That Never Dies: How a Single Tree Became 80,000 Clones
The Plant That Eats Metal: How Rinorea niccolifera Could Clean the Earth
The Hidden Victory: Why Child Mortality Has Dropped Dramatically in Wealthy Nations
When Robots Grow Forests: Brazil’s AI Tree-Planting Revolution
The Hydrogen Horse: Kawasaki’s Wild Leap into the Future of Movement
