ReefCycle: Bioconcrete Reef Structures

Climate-resilient coastlines must withstand increasingly severe impacts from climate disasters, demanding durable and accessible materials like cement. Cement, the most used material on earth after water, has a colossal carbon footprint, further exacerbating the climate crisis. Thus, escalating demand for polluting material to withstand increasingly severe climates. This represents an existential dilemma: how do we engineer climate resilient structures without further contributing to climate degradation?  

Rising sea levels threaten coastal communities with increased flooding, erosion, and escalating impacts from storm surges, amplifying socioeconomic disparities and geographic vulnerability. 40% of Americans live in coastal regions at risk of property and structural damage due to sea level rise, with around 20 million coastal residents at risk of adverse impacts from sea level rise by 2030. These regions are more racially and ethnically diverse than the rest of the country: groups other than non-Hispanic White account for 52% of the population in coastal regions in 2017 (the most recent year for which the US Census Bureau released data). 

Globally, climate change’s impacts on coastal flooding are projected to increase 5-times over this century, putting over 70 million people in the path of expanding floodplains, according to UNDP and CIL data. Latin America, the Caribbean, the Pacific, and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are at the forefront, projected to lose significant land and critical infrastructure to permanent inundation. Hundreds of highly populated cities will be exposed to increased flood risk on our current emissions plan.

To safeguard frontline communities and build a climate resilient future, low-emission technologies must be scaled and transferred to citizens to be employed towards shoreline defenses: effectively mitigating emissions while promoting effective climate adaptation. Today, shoreline defense solutions employ cement, due to its durability and accessibility, to build coastline resilience that promotes nature-as-infrastructure, like the deployment at scale of artificial reef structures. Cement, the critical binder to form concrete, will be crucial for much-needed climate-resiliency construction. However, its high-energy production, which accounts for 8% of global CO2 emissions, must be decarbonized to scale coastline climate adaptation at a local and affordable level. 

Restoring oyster and coral reefs worldwide is crucial for reducing the impact of coastal natural disasters. Reefs play a vital role in dissipating wave energy, mitigating storm surges, controlling erosion, improving water quality, and fostering biodiversity. Globally, oyster populations have declined by more than 85%. Studies show that reefs can reduce the power and energy of waves by as much as 76-93%. With an estimated $1.8 billion in averted damages to property and economic activities as well as an economic value of $3.4 billion, the installation of permanent, cement reef structures along coastlines is essential to restore marine populations and their ecological services at the pace and breath necessary to keep pace with climate change. 

New technologies in manufacturing seek to decarbonize industrial materials like cement. While emissions must be reduced at a rapid pace and scale, low-emission solutions also must be adapted so that at-risk populations can build immediate and long-term resilience against rising sea levels.

ReefCycle is a revolutionary technology that utilizes nature to grow bioconcrete like a crop. We then apply this process to the growth of reef restoration modules, which can be deployed to dampen wave energy and reduce erosion in coastal areas. 

The biological phenomenon of growing minerals is, in fact, very old: it’s the result of billions of years of R&D by nature. Biomineralization occurs when living organisms produce inorganic minerals, similarly to the natural mineral binder produced by oysters and mollusks to attach themselves to rocks and to grow their reefs. This material is incredibly durable, resisting wave energy and corrosive salt water. 

Our technology utilizes the same biochemical process with a simple, yet revolutionary, twist. Rather than using organisms to grow mineral composites, we employ enzymes extracted from nitrogen-fixing, drought-resistant, and globally-available plants. This results in an inert, non-toxic, low-cost, and scalable process with increased efficiency and strength compared to other biological materials.

ReefCycle bioconcrete is grown in situ into prefab molds to produce structures for oyster and coral reef restoration.  At the most basic level, this is done by submerging crushed waste in an enzymatic bath for three days, during which, mineral crystals grow to fill the porous space between aggregate particles. After three days, the liquid solution is drained, resulting in a mineral composite material we call bioconcrete. Working with our community and nonprofit partner, Billion Oyster Project, we deploy the output as citizen science reef modules, which reduce flooding, filter water, and promote biodiversity, and that are monitored by volunteers to collect critical resilience metrics. 

As this process mimics the formation of shells by nature, bioconcrete reef structures are chemically identical to those grown by oysters: effectively regrowing reef scaffolding in days that take millenia to grow in nature. The production of our artificial reefs is contained within the geographic boundaries of NYC’s Governors Island, where we’ve developed a closed-loop system for growing and sourcing for bioconcrete growth. 

Thus, ReefCycle bioconcrete can be grown by anyone: enabling local and affordable adaptation of carbon-neutral cement production. The process does not require an industrial process to scale, rather, it can be utilized informally in high-impact locations to fill the current demand for durable materials. Bioconcrete can be grown in small batches or scaled up for local manufacturing with an irrigation system similar to vertical farming. 

In employing nature in the manufacturing process, ReefCycle bioconcrete reef modules are grown without energy input, heat, or otherwise burning fossil fuels. The feedstock for the process is renewable, waste-derived, and can be produced globally at scale or locally by non-experts. The ReefCycle process is bio-circular, sequestering carbon and repurposing waste, with the help of nature, into material that can be used to build restoration structures, like breakwaters or artificial reefs, blocks for building, or any other modular structure: making it a green solution that can be directly transferred into the hands of communities, through nonprofit partnerships, so that they can solve local challenges relating to the global impacts of climate change.

ReefCycle has a direct and significant impact on frontline communities in low-lying areas of New York City, specifically the vulnerable coastline communities of Rockaways, Red Hook, Greenpoint, and Gerritsen Beach. These populations have been heavily impacted by coastal natural hazards, with extreme events like Hurricane Sandy causing over $60 billion in economic damages. 

In New York City, communities of color in low-lying coastal areas face disproportionate challenges in responding to climate risks due to systemic inequities further compounded by past exposure to disasters. They often have limited resources, lack access to affordable housing and infrastructure, and have historically had less political power to advocate for their needs, exacerbating their vulnerability to climate-related hazards. Our primary stakeholders are students and volunteers from these vulnerable communities involved in resilience efforts.

The implementation of the ReefCycle system has immediate and long-term impacts on coastal resilience for our target beneficiaries. The implantation of reef structures immediately contributes to restoring ecological services at a local level: mitigating the risks of flooding and erosion while delivering immediate benefits to local communities, protecting their economies and real estate from the adverse impacts of natural hazards, creating informal jobs, and promoting aquaculture and tourism. What’s more, the utilization of bioconcrete brings additional value including wastewater treatment and soil remediation, while the long-term benefits of the application of bioconcrete reefs improves water quality, remediating polluted water. 

By engaging frontline communities in restoring their local ecology while employing carbon-neutral technology, ReefCycle offers a self-regulating infrastructure solution that grows over time, keeping pace with climate change. Modular reef structures are critical in restoring key, self-regulating mechanisms, including wave energy dissipation, storm surge mitigation, erosion control, water quality improvement, habitat creation, and biodiversity enhancement.  

ReefCycle addresses the needs of education, stewardship, data collection, and skill development by actively engaging students and volunteers in restoring and protecting their coastal ecosystems. Through collaborations with the nonprofits and education organizations Billion Oyster Project and the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School, we offer hands-on training in oyster reef restoration, marine ecology, and sustainable technology, equipping students and volunteers with practical skills and environmental knowledge: fostering ownership and community. The volunteers, in turn, monitor reef structures: collecting metrics like biodiversity growth and logging water quality. 

By involving frontline New Yorkers in our solution's planning, implementation, and maintenance, populations actively contribute to their own well-being and long-term success. Students and volunteers gain valuable skills, knowledge, and a deeper connection to their natural environment, positioning them with the tools to address local challenges related to climate change. 

Over time, the rapid deployment of low-emissions materials that sequester carbon reduces global emissions, which in turn reduces the speed of global warming: decreasing the impacts of sea level rise. Our vision is transforming urban coastlines into thriving, green, and resilient public spaces. By demonstrating the success of our approach in New York City, we aim to inspire similar efforts on a national and global scale, ensuring the community-driven protection and restoration of marine ecosystems and the well-being of coastal communities. 

Fundamental to our approach is the belief that good design is quiet, inclusive, and powerful. In such a way, we seek to provide tools and knowledge so that frontline communities can adapt climate technology at a local level and deploy it rapidly. This is founded in human- and planet-centric design approach, which encompasses life-friendly considerations as well as the belief that the long-term success of innovation relies on the benefits it empowers: both directly and indirectly. 

Our team is composed of Industrial Designer Mary Lempres (that’s me), Bio-GeoTechnical Engineer Ahmed Miftah PhD, and Physicist Helio Takai PhD. Beyond our professional and academic accolades, we are driven and connected by our shared belief system and passion for creating lasting change locally, for global impact, through education and co-design.  

Living in Brooklyn, New York, I’ve experienced the impacts of nuanced and coastal flooding, and the prolonged recovery from Hurricane Sandy, on a regular basis. This motivated me to join my community to make engage in building an adaptive coastline and resilient community. As a designer, I’m uniquely positioned to employ design thinking strategies and rapid prototyping to engage with my community through co-design.

During my early career, I taught Arts & Ecology courses in New York Public Schools in Brooklyn’s Rockaway and Coney Island neighorhoods: low-lying regions where flooding impacts are particularly pronounced. We explored our local ecosystems and the role of creative expression in driving climate change and activism. Through collaboration, experimentation, and creativity, we built knowledge around ecological services and the benefits they provided. 

This passion for sharing nature’s brilliance with youth is one that I’ve carried through my career as a member of community action groups, as a youth mentor, as a member of the Billion Oyster Project, which seeks to restore oyster reefs to NYC through public education initiatives, and in my design practice. Learning from my community informs my approach to innovation and provides me with first hand empathy towards the daily challenges faced by and priorities of frontline communities.

ReefCycle was conceived through this perspective: my approach towards collaborative and accessible design, which requires beneficiaries to be involved as active participants in the co-design process. It further enabled me to prototype, test, and iterate rapidly and in partnership with beneficiaries. Through workshops, interviews, and events; we included frontline communities, nonprofit organizations, and nature as primary stakeholders in the design, testing, and implementation of our core technology. ReefCycle is a product of participatory problem solving with those who benefit most from its success, with a “cosmopolitan localism” approach that enables its utalization locally to solve specific problems while addressing the global need to reduce emissions. 

It is these experiences, approaches, and proximity to beneficiaries that shape our perspectives and unify our team. We seek to empower and educate, rather than prescribe, culturally-responsible and long-term sustainable climate solutions so that frontline communities can utilize climate technology to solve local problems. 

Thus far, we’ve developed our core technology and procured a provisional patent. After conducting one year of co-design development, social and implementation testing, and systems mapping, we’re one year into the process of a testing program with our partners. This program includes material testing, defining boundaries for closed-loop production and fabrication, and product testing with our community. 

With permits and expert scientists from the Billion Oyster Project, we’ve installed 3 modular bioconcrete structures in the New York Harbor, along with numerous material samples, where they are being monitored for biodiversity recruitment and durability. After the first year of marine testing, our ReefCycle structures have recruited oyster larvae and other biodiversity, indicating biocompatibility in marine environments, and have retained their structure despite wave energy and corrosive salt water. They will remain in the New York Harbor for the next two years: representing a 3 year, full life-study of oyster spawning onto ReefCycle material. This testing program is a critical step in our partnerships with the New York Harbor School and Billion Oyster Project, who, with their volunteers and citizen scientists, and through their public education initiatives, serve as our main beneficiaries. 

In the lab setting, and informed by market research, social and ecological co-design and stakeholder engagement, we are exploring produce applications for our product, including DIY and scalable machinery for bioconcrete production and a dehydrated enzymatic powder that can be used, with water, to grow bioconcrete. At the same time, we’re conducting XRD tests and comparative studies of our enzymatic bioconcretes compared to existing innovations and market standards.

Becoming a Solver will significantly and exceptionally impact our development as a company. At this point, we understand the critical need for expert mentorship and involvement in a like-minded community to maximize the impact and reach of our solution. With this in mind, we hope to overcome the following barriers as participants in Solve through leadership coaching, monitoring and evaluation support, workshops, and through the Solve network : 

1. Product Strategy, Market Research

Core to our technology is the integration of beneficiaries into the design process. As we develop products utilizing our fossil-free system, community involvement and testing remain a critical component in the development process. We aim to do this through our collaboration with the Billion Oyster Project. The barrier we are currently facing is the need for informed and expert market knowledge related to industry, supply chain, and policy that will inform the impact of our product strategy. We seek legal, cultural, and market support in placing our solution within the correct product application.

2. Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

A barrier we’ve identified that will inform our product strategy, partnerships, LCA, and technology development is that we do not have clear metrics yet regarding the technical and economic feasibility of scaling our technology. We need to understand the cost, risk, and impact of our solution, particularly around critical low-emissions metrics like carbon capture, unit economics, competitive advantage, and feasibility. This will require mentorship and support around TEA, testing, and financing. 

Understanding the current impact of our technology (through an LCA) is critical in improving our core technology as well as developing an impactful product application. Informed by LCA, we plan to explore other waste-derived sources for producing bioconcrete and created a closed-loop, carbon-neutral production model. These critical decisions hinge on data from our LCA. 

3. Impact Strategy 

Informed by a TEA and LCA, we need ambitious and achievable impact metrics to inform our strategy. Setting achievable and impactful targets will require support from seasoned experts in the field.  

4. Strategic Partnerships 

Our partnership with the Billion Oyster Project has been critical to the success of ReefCycle through testing, community engagement, and market knowledge. To understand the complexities of global innovation, we will need to establish strategic partners with diverse perspectives to inform the continued development of our technology and product applications. 

Our proposal introduces two critical concepts for the production of bio-concrete: the use of enzymes to bond sand particles to form bioconcrete and the use of artificial sand made from crushed waste, reusing materials available in large quantities, such as non-recyclable glass and oyster shells. The production is intrinsically energy efficient as it doesn’t require heat and mechanical energy for the grinding process. Thus, it is a technology that can be propagated quickly to places worldwide that need solutions today. 

Critical to solving the challenge of decarbonizing cement production is scaling low-emission, low-cost, and accessible technology. Our technology is unique in its shared characteristics with standard cement: it is cheap, non-expert, and durable. Anyone, anywhere can produce it; it does not require a factory or global supply chain to scale; and it promotes a natural process that sequesters carbon and bypasses the petroleum economy. This is critical for democratizing green cement production so that it can be adapted rapidly at scale. 

Our solution is innovative in the following ways: 

1. Uses plant-based enzymes to bond sand particles to form rigid structures.

2. We can use artificial sand made of ground non-recyclable glass, oyster shells, and others that can be ground to small particulates. 

3. Our production process is eco-friendly and energy-efficient. It operates without high temperatures, and materials can be ground using renewable energy sources such as wind or water mills. 

4. The production can use molds made from various materials, including locally found banana leaves, wood, bamboo, etc. 

5. The technology can be propagated quickly to many locations as local material can be resourced for production. 

6. Reefcycle is biocompatible, producing no harm to the environment. 

Looking towards the future, ReefCycle’s innovation is disruptive at a local level, catalyzing broader positive impacts in the space of blue economy solutions and green manufacturing. For green economy solutions to scale, low-impact materials are required to grow durable structures for coastal adaptation and restoration. Green manufacturing modalities must shift from global supply chains to local and circular production, particularly in low-resource, high-climate-impact locations. ReefCycle models net-zero emissions for material production, which can be scaled industrially while upcycling waste through a resource-efficient supply chain or modeled locally without the need for industrial processes. 

Through accessible bio-circular economic solutions like ours, commodities can be sourced from available and renewable resources outside of global supply chains, linking mitigation, adaptation, and sustainable development. Here are broader applications we see for our solutions within the resiliency space and its impacts on the market: 

• The use of biocementation to bind together local fibers, like hemp fiber, to form lightweight blocks could increase demand for and adoption of sustainable building materials . 

• The injection of bioconcrete into existing and fractured infrastructure to improve strength could enable sustainable infrastructure maintenance. 

• Immobilization of contaminated soils and bioremediation by bioconcrete may contribute to local environmental remediation and municipal or industrial clean up of contaminated sites.

• The use of contaminated wastewater in growing bioconcrete to clean contaminated water. 

The long-term objective of our program is to build climate resilience and adaptation through the production of coastline restoration structures from regenerative bioconcrete. We aim to do this by working with community-oriented nonprofits to provide tools and services to support “frontline communities,” populations in coastal regions most impacted by climate change, in sourcing and producing bioconcrete to support a bio-circular economic model, bypassing the industrial supply chain. With this knowledge, support, and equipment, frontline communities can fabricate durable materials in situ from renewable and upcycled resources: creating carbon-capture bioconcretes that can be used to prevent, prepare for, and recover from natural disasters. Such applications include the construction of reef restoration modules to promote nature-as-infrastructure, which are monitored by volunteers to collect key metrics relating to biodiversity and water quality, which indicate the extent and success of marine restoration and climate resilience efforts. 

The activities of this program will transfer low-emissions technology to frontline communities to promote climate adaptive practices: resulting in the creation of local, informal, and circular production, infrastructure, and economies due to the decentralization of climate technology and resource generation. By engaging communities in the design, planning, and implementation of artificial reef structures, the program promotes adaptive city planning that restores and strengthens marine ecosystems and communities through the broader blue economy while mitigating emissions associated with materials production and global supply chains. Engagement with ReefCycle’s bioconcrete process could lead to wider adoption of bioconcrete and other bio-circular-local solutions towards the built environment, marine conservation, and adaptive coastlines and infrastructure.

Critical to achieving these goals is establishing key partnerships with nonprofit organizations and educational institutions in frontline communities to ensure community-informed technology transfer and design. Achieving these goals will relieve the impact that frontline communities feel from rising sea levels: promoting economic growth, reducing impacts from sea level rise, and, globally, reducing emissions associated with materials and resource generation. The democratization of this technology may ultimately change people's knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors towards climate adaptation and resilience planning. 

To align our program's outcomes with our long-term objectives, we have identified "build bio-circular-local climate resilience in frontline populations" as a final outcome. The following visual representation outlines the inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes, and overarching goal of our program:

1. Establish key relationships with community-led nonprofit partners.

2. Engage frontline communities in local-circular-biomanufacturing of durable materials through community involvement, tech transfer, and training programs.

3. Democratize low-emissions technology for the informal and community-informed production of resilient infrastructure.

4. Promote accessible, affordable, waste-derived, fossil-free, and carbon-sequestering bioconcrete production.

5. Support organizations and populations engaged in the fabrication and implementation of artificial reef structures and other climate adaptive coastal restoration modules.

These objectives and goals are a result of the following, which we will continue to implement through our program: 

1. Ethnogoraphy, stakeholder interviews, co-design workshops, systems mapping

2. Impact Evaluation  

3. Research and expert advice from nonprofit partnerships

By following these steps, we aim to build climate resilience and adaptation while simultaneously contributing to economic growth, environmental sustainability, and community empowerment within frontline populations.

Increase Coastal Resilience and Reduce Property Damage:

• Goal: Restore natural infrastructure to increase wave energy dissipation, leading to a 20% reduction in coastal erosion and property damage over a five year period.

• Indicator: Measure the reduction in coastal erosion rates and property damage over the specified time frame, within system boundaries. 

Mitigate Storm Surge Impact and Coastal Flooding:

• Goal: Deploy bioconcrete structures to attenuate storm surges, resulting in a 15% reduction in coastal flooding incidents within three years.

• Indicator: Monitor the decrease in coastal flooding incidents over the specified time frame and system boundary. 

Enhance Habitat Creation and Biodiversity:

• Goal: Increase marine species richness by 20% by 2030 through habitat creation and biodiversity enhancement efforts.

• Indicator: Monitor changes in marine species richness over the specified time frame.

Engage and Empower Students and Volunteers:

• Goal: Engage 1,000 students and volunteers annually in hands-on restoration activities and provide training in restoration, marine ecology, and bioconcrete technology to 500 individuals annually through nonprofit and academic partnerships, fostering environmental stewardship and leadership development within four years.

• Indicator: Track and engage the number of participants engaged annually and assess their skill development and leadership roles within their communities.

Empower Women and Strengthen Community Ownership:

• Goal: Empower 20 women from frontline communities as leaders in climate resilience and technology adoption within three years, fostering a sense of community ownership and pride among 300 frontline community members involved in reef module fabrication and implementation.

• Indicator: Monitor the progress of women empowerment initiatives and community engagement activities.

Diversify and Strengthen Partnerships:

• Goal: Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard coastal frontline communities' cultural and natural heritage by diversifying partnerships related to preservation, protection, and conservation, establishing key partnerships with five community-oriented nonprofits worldwide in the next three years.

• Indicator: Assess the diversity and effectiveness of partnerships established and their impact on heritage preservation and community development.

Contribute to Economic Development and Empowerment:

• Goal: Contribute to economic development in frontline communities through increased sustainable practices, tourism, and local production, benefiting 500 community members through employment and generating $1 million in local revenue from reef module sourcing, fabrication, and installation within five years.

• Indicator: Measure the increase in employment opportunities, revenue generation, and economic empowerment within the targeted communities.

Support Sustainable Infrastructure Development:

• Goal: Facilitate sustainable infrastructure development in developing countries through financial and technological support, establishing joint grant funding with partnership nonprofits.

• Indicator: Track the implementation of joint grant funding and assess its impact on sustainable infrastructure development in targeted regions.

Reduce Carbon Emissions and Promote Climate Migitation:

• Goal: Reduce carbon emissions associated with the blue economy and climate resiliency by 20% by 2030.

• Indicator: Monitor carbon emission reductions as compared to cement and assess progress towards the 20% reduction target by 2030.

While the employment of our provisional technology is modern, it is ancient in the natural world. Our employment utilizes biomimicry’s bio-assisted design principles to harness technology in nature to promote accessible and adaptable innovation. We do this in two ways: first, we use enzymes from plants to catalyze the growth of hard materials which can be grown around waste to form a weather-resistant and hard composite material similar to cement. Secondly, we employ this technology towards growing low-emission natural infrastructure, regenerating local ecosystems and reducing coastal natural hazards. These two processes are adaptive, responding to local resources and the needs of specific communities and ecosystems. 

As we’ve had a chance to discuss our core technology(biocementation), which we use to grow minerals into waste-derived composites, we’ll take this opportunity to discuss the application of bioconcrete as artificial reef structures, which contribute to building coastal resilience by restoring nature's defense system. Modular reef structures play a critical role in restoring key, self-regulating mechanisms, including: 

1. Wave Energy Dissipation: Reefs act as natural barriers that break and absorb wave energy during storms and high tides. They are a buffer, reducing the intensity of waves reaching the shoreline. Wave energy dissipation protect coastal areas from erosion, reducing the risk of flooding and property damage. 

2. Storm Surge Mitigation: Reefs have the ability to attenuate storm surge impacts. By absorbing and slowing down the movement of water, reefs reduce the height and force of storm surges, lowering the risk of coastal flooding and the associated damages. 

3.  Erosion Control: Reefs provide stabilization to shorelines; reducing erosion. They trap and promote the deposition of new sediment, which helps build up and maintain beaches and coastal landforms; strengthening the resilience of coastal areas against natural hazards and sea level rise. Bioconcrete can also be utalized to stack along coastlines; reducing erosion by stabilizing sandy soil.

4. Water Quality Improvement: In the case of oyster reefs, oysters are filter feeders: they extract particles and pollutants from the water as they feed. By restoring oyster populations, water quality is improved as they help filter excess nutrients, sediments, and contaminants. In fact, one oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day! Cleaner water reduces the impacts of algal blooms, enhances habitat quality for marine life, and contributes to overall ecosystem health. In New York City, this service aids in recovery after storms due to our out-dated sewage overflow system, which releases polluted urban runoff and raw sewage into our waterways. 

5. Habitat Creation and Biodiversity Enhancement: Reefs provide essential habitat for numerous marine species. By restoring these reefs, we enhance biodiversity and create a thriving ecosystem. A diverse and healthy ecosystem is more resilient to disturbances and can better withstand and recover from the impacts of natural disasters. 

Through the use of nature to grow structures, and their implementation restoring ecological functions, our solution sits between modern and ancestral technologies: thus, facilitating nature to solve a new and man-made problem. 

The leading application for biocementation in the field is through the established microbial method known as Microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP), which  mimics the natural cementation process that occurs in various geological settings by using the bicarbonate minerals resulting from various bacterial metabolic pathways as cementing agents. This bio-technique can be used to manufacture so-called “bio-bricks,” which rival regular bricks in strength and durability. 

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmats.2023.1155643/full

A study by Maiia Smirnova found that bioconcrete produced microbially can achieve compressive strength comparable to traditional concrete. These studies produced homogeneously cemented specimens with strengths up to 50MPa- potentially meeting requirements for prefabricated structural elements. 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44296-023-00004-6

Studies show that biocementation can sequester up to 84% CO2, making it a carbon sequestration solution:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27524723/

The enzymatic process that our technology employs to produce calcification is known as Enzyme induced carbonate precipitation (EICP), which is an emerging solution compared to the more researched topic of MICP, being researched in the field of soil stabilization. According to research by Fuzhou Univiersity, the method of EICP has advantages over the commonly used microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) process as it does not involve issues related to bio-safety. This is due to the environmental concerns related to the microbes that remain in the soil after MICP and the release of ammonia through the MICP process. In comparison, EICP seems to be better than MICP. It has also risen in popularity as it can be produced in situ. 

https://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/doi/abs/10.1680/jgeen.16.00138

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4352/11/4/370

https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/(ASCE)MT.1943-5533.0001604

 A life cycle assessment (LCA) study was conducted to compare the use of traditional soil stabilization using Portland cement (PC) with bio-cementation via EICP over a range of environmental impacts. The LCA results revealed that EICP soil treatment has nearly 90% less abiotic depletion potential and 3% less global warming potential compared to PC in soil stabilization. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-09723-7

The following study found that EICP can achieve unprecedented efficiency compared with the results of MICP. https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/science/article/pii/S2949929123000074

Biocementation is proven to remediate contaminated soils and to treat wastewater. https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4352/11/4/370

Alongside these academic sources, we have conducted numerous lab experiments to produce bioconcrete from EICP, which we are in the process of testing with XRD and through our testing program with Billion Oyster Project, wherein, we’ve installed bioconcrete reef structures in the New York Harbor. Attached are photos of the retrieved bioconcrete modules after the first year of the study. These results indicate durability and biocompatibility in marine environments. 

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/63123c9eae50ba59f57ed765/t/65e5fe12ceab590f3daa36ad/1709571609414/ReefRocket_FieldWork2023.pdf

Full-Time Staff (1)

Mary Lempres - Full Time

Part-Time Staff (2)

Ahmed Miftah PhD- Part Time 

Helio Takai PhD- Part Time 

Partners (2)

Jennifer Zhu PhD - Full Time at Billion Oyster Project 

Jenn is our primary partnership contact, responsible for Marine Habitat Resources and our testing program with Billion Oyster Project 

Ben LoGuidice - Full Time at Billion Oyster Project 

Ben is the Oyster Production Program Manger at Billion Oyster Project and responsible for monitoring ReefCycle’s bioconcrete reef modules and samples during our testing program. 

2016 - Ahmed Miftah has been researching the topic of enzymatic biocementation and its applications in clean technology since 2016.

2021 - Mary Lempres began researching the design applications for biocementation through ethnographic and co-design research with community members along the New York Harbor as the topic of her Master’s of Industrial Design thesis. 

2022- The duo combined their efforts towards the application of enzymatic bioconcrete for reef restoration, establishing a partnership with the Billion Oyster Project. 

2023 - Helio Takai joined our team. 

2024 - ReefCycle LLC was formed 

Our team is diverse, and we are committed to representing diverse, inclusive, and equitable perspectives, which are critical in addressing climate change and transferring technology sustainability, equally, and inclusively. Our COO, Helio Takai, is experienced in inclusive hiring in the academic setting and brings this knowledge with him to our team. 

The UN estimates that  80% of people displaced by climate change are women. At the same time, only 7% of US climate tech venture capital funding went to female founders in 2023, according to GreenBiz. As a female-founded team, with a diverse team representing perspectives across different continents and sectors, our goal is to continue to grow into a more diverse team.

ReefCycle's in its early stages of development, with a prototype currently being tested with our restoration partners. We seek funding to bring the prototype to a stage where it can be piloted, to detail and develop our product and cost structure, establish key partnerships in the supply chain, and conduct further customer discovery. 

Our solution, while designed with and for communities along the New York Harbor, has applications in every coastal city, harbor, and population in the world, specifically in developing and low-resource contexts. It provides organizations, from municipal to local, with low-emissions technology that is utilized to slow erosion, improve water quality, and reduce impacts from coastal natural hazards. 

Key Customers and Beneficiaries: 

Our key partners are governments, nonprofit groups, and educational institutions engaged in coastal restoration, blue economy, and coastal climate resilience (“The restoration economy”). We work with them to implement bioconcrete as a green alternative to conventional, polluting materials. 

Our customers are the vendors currently supporting such organizations, who supply materials and hardware for coastal restoration equipment. These vendors are responsible for the production, deployment, and installation of artificial reef structures. 

Our technology enables reef restoration vendors to utilize carbon-neutral technology and employ healthy materials in restoration that doesn’t damage or pollute marine ecosystems. In turn, the implementation of bioconcrete reef structures promote natural infrastructure, improving the lives of frontline communities and ecosystems. The advantages of our technology could be applied towards additional remediation efforts by organizations and governments to benefit frontline communities, including the use of bioconcrete for contamination clean up in soil and marine environments. 

Flow of Products/Services: 

ReefCycle → Restoration Materials & Deployment Vendors → Governments & Nonprofits → Frontline Communities 

Products and Services: 

1. Low-Cost Consumable Product: We provide a dehydrated powder, which is simply hydrated and applied as a liquid treatment over crushed waste aggregate, forming bioconcrete. 

2. Modular Hardware: We sell hardware that can be used manually or through a clean-energy system to automate and streamline the production of bioconcrete and crushing of waste material for local manufacturing. 

3. Custom Models: We design custom molds based on specs defined by nonprofits/organizations and frontline communities/marine specialists.

4. Licensing: ReefCycl(ing) technology is licensed to vendors with tech transfer fee

5. Education: We work with nonprofits to procure joint-funding for education and community-driven knowledge transfer. 

These products and services can be adopted by our beneficiaries and customers at different scales from DIY to local manufacturing. By selling these products and services to intermediary vendors, we are not responsible for the implementation of bioconcrete structures, rather, we engage in direct design development with communities through partnerships and license our low-emissions production process to intermediaries who, in turn, sell their services to organizations and municipalities. Our expenses, which are built in to the lincensing model, will entail product development, community-led design, testing, and research. 

Due to the customized approach we take to delivering products and services, ReefCycle can be expanded to other applications, including soil remediation, building materials, and other forms of coastal restoration modules. 

We will bring money to fund our work through the following revenue streams: 

1. Direct Sales - We will sell our B2B consumable bioconcrete powder and fabrication equipment directly to third party vendors and nonprofit organizations. 

2. Licensing and Design - We will license our technology to third party vendors as well as organziations equipt to fabricate and deploy restoration modules. This licensing model will include trainings, technology transfer, and testing for new waste-streams or additional biological services (like bioremediation). Baked into this service, we will also charge a one-time fee for the design and development of custom modular molds based on regional policies, ecosystems, risks, and the extent/type of community involvement employed by nonprofit partners. 

3. Grants - With our nonprofit partners, we will pursue joint partnership grants to support design development and research towards new applications, impact assessment, impact monitoring, and third party vendor financing. We will also explore early-stage funding from foundations in piloting ReefCycle. 

Thus far, we have receive $30,000 in grant funding from CAAA, AON, and IDEO as a early-stage winner of the 2023 OpenIDEO Climate Resiliency Challenge, which was judged by the Environmental Defence Fund, Network for Good, and Guidewire. In addition to this, we’ve connected with a number of nonprofit and community-led organizations, as well as reef restoration vendors, interested in utalizing ReefCycle to solve a range of challenges. Our partners, Billion Oyster Project, have committed to piloting our solution after the completion of our testing program.