Living Tattoos Are Meant for Skyscrapers, Not Skin - Scitke

2 4 — If the living tattoos are created with bioluminescent microbes, they’d be able glow at night as seen in this illustrative image
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A team of researchers from four European countries is creating a novel way to apply microbial life as “living tattoos” on building exteriors. These biological coatings will not only absorb carbon dioxide from the air but also protect structures and potentially cause them to emit light.

A New Use for Urban Surface Area

Experts estimate that within the next 25 years, the European Union will construct or renovate buildings covering a total of 9.4 billion square meters. For scientists like Carole Planchette from Graz University of Technology, this vast area offers more than just space for traditional building materials—it presents an opportunity to cultivate microbes, such as bacteria and fungi, on the surfaces.

Planchette is part of a consortium awarded nearly €3 million by the European Innovation Council to advance this tattoo technology through a project named REMEDY, or formally, “Archibiome tattoo for resistant, responsive, and resilient cities.” She explains that the living tattoos will feature two layers: a first layer made of pigmented, high-resolution ink that forms the visual design, followed by a second layer consisting of a thin biofilm of microorganisms applied using a biological ink.

The researchers designed this biofilm to remain thin and mostly transparent, though it might show minor color or texture differences. The team plans to carefully assess the aesthetic effects as part of their research.

?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewatlas Brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ff3%2F26%2Fee4732a2453ea893862a57251c6c%2Ffungi Tattoos — Cultured fungi taken by project coordinator, Anna Sandak, from buildings in the coastal city of Izola, Slovenia. “The fungi shown illustrate the diversity of forms, colors, and functions that nature-based materials can provide – while they also stand as promising candidates for our concept,” Graz scientist Carole Planchette told us.
Ana Gubenšek

Beyond looks, Planchette and her colleagues believe these living tattoos could provide multiple advantages. They aim to develop a beneficial microbiome that protects buildings by resisting harmful microbes and even repairing minor surface cracks autonomously. Additional benefits may include carbon capture, oxygen generation, and environmental detoxification.Researchers might also engineer the living inks to glow, potentially allowing buildings to emit a soft light.

Selecting the Right Microbial Communities

The team is currently selecting the exact microbes for the inks and is focusing on organisms that can form stable and functional communities.

Planchette’s current task is to develop specialized inkjet printing technology capable of spraying these microbial tattoos onto building materials. This is challenging because standard inkjet heads are too small to handle microbial colonies, which cluster in millimeter-sized groups.

She remains optimistic: “I’m confident we will develop the right inks and printing technology during the project. We also expect to find microorganisms that can survive the ink and the stresses of printing. Achieving a fully reproducible process within four years will be exciting. Using living, evolving inks in industrial inkjet printing, which demands precise parameters, is uncharted territory for REMEDY.”

Read the original article on: New Atlas