Source: ETH Zurich, 6/21/25
The idea seems futuristic: At ETH Zurich, various disciplines are working together to combine conventional materials with bacteria, algae and fungi. The common goal: to create living materials that acquire useful properties thanks to the metabolism of microorganisms – "such as the ability to bind CO2 from the air by means of photosynthesis," says Mark Tibbitt, Professor of Macromolecular Engineering at ETH Zurich.
An interdisciplinary research team led by Tibbitt has now turned this vision into reality: it has stably incorporated photosynthetic bacteria – known as cyanobacteria – into a printable gel and developed a material that is alive, grows and actively removes carbon from the air. The researchers recently presented their "photosynthetic living material" in a study in the journal Nature Communications.