Wil Srubar News

Wil Srubar named American Ceramic Society fellow

Susan Glairon — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 20:55:34 +0000

Wil Srubar named American Ceramic Society fellow Susan Glairon Thu, 07/03/2025 - 14:55

Susan Glairon

Professor Wil Srubar has been named a fellow of The American Ceramic Society (ACerS), one of the highest honors for researchers in cement chemistry. Fellows of the American Ceramics Society are recognized for their contributions to the ceramics, cements and materials science community.

“Being named a Fellow of the American Ceramics Society is incredibly humbling,” Srubar said. “I’m honored to be included among such an accomplished group of peers who have advanced the field through research, innovation and service.”

Srubar is the principal director of the Living Materials Laboratory, where an interdisciplinary team develops nature-inspired concrete alternatives that can be produced without fossil fuels or significant carbon emissions.

He recently served as the conference chair for the 15th Advances in Cement-Based Materials, held June 11-13 at the ��. Srubar also previously held several ACerS leadership roles, including cements division chair, chair-elect and secretary.

He will be recognized on Sept. 29 at the ACerS Honors and Awards Banquet during the society’s 127th annual meeting to be held in Columbus, Ohio.

“I’m grateful to the mentors, collaborators and students who’ve shaped my journey and made this recognition possible,” Srubar said.

Professor Wil Srubar is the principal director of the Living Materials Laboratory, where an interdisciplinary team develops nature-inspired concrete alternatives that can be produced without fossil fuels or significant carbon emissions.

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Check out these CEAE conferences!

Susan Glairon — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 16:55:46 +0000

Check out these CEAE conferences! Susan Glairon Tue, 06/03/2025 - 10:55

CEAE is hosting five conferences, this summer and beyond. Please join us!

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Wil Srubar’s lab is full of living materials

Susan Glairon — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 00:29:05 +0000

Wil Srubar’s lab is full of living materials Susan Glairon Mon, 03/03/2025 - 17:29

Wil Srubar's aim is to break the reliance on fossil fuels in concrete production by developing a nature-inspired alternative that eliminates the need for fossil fuels and significantly reduces carbon emissions.

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CU Boulder researchers harness nature to create living optical materials

Susan Glairon — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 15:20:21 +0000

CU Boulder researchers harness nature to create living optical materials Susan Glairon Tue, 01/21/2025 - 08:20

Susan Glairon

Photo caption: Optical image of living microlenses. Engineered microbes focus light that pass through a thin layer of glass that forms on their surface. Courtesy of Lynn Sidor, Meyer Lab, University of Rochester.

CU Boulder’s Living Materials Laboratory played a key role in studying tiny bioglass lenses that were designed to form on the surface of engineered microbes, a scientific breakthrough that could pave the way for groundbreaking imaging technologies in both medical and commercial applications.

The project, led by the University of Rochester and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was inspired by the enzymes secreted by sea sponges that help them grow glass-like silica shells. The shells are lightweight, durable and enable the sea sponges to thrive in harsh marine environments.

“By engineering microbes to display these same enzymes, our collaborators were able to form glass on the cell surface, which turned the cells into living microlenses,” said Wil Srubar, a coauthor of the paper and professor of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering and the Materials Science and Engineering Program. “This is a terrific example of how learning and applying nature’s design principles can enable the production of advanced materials.”

Professor Wil Srubar

Using imaging and X-ray techniques, CU Boulder researchers analyzed the silica, also known as “bioglass,” and quantified the amount surrounding different bacterial strains. The CU Boulder researchers demonstrated that bacteria engineered to form bioglass spheres contained significantly higher silica levels than non-engineered strains. Combined with optics data, the results confirmed that bacteria could be bioengineered to create bioglass microlenses with excellent light-focusing properties.

Microlenses are very small lenses that are only a few micrometers in size—about the size of a single human cell and designed to capture and focus or manipulate light into intense beams at a microscopic scale. Because of their small size, microlenses are typically difficult to create, requiring complex, expensive machinery and extreme temperatures or pressures to shape them accurately and achieve the desired optical effects.

The small size of the bacterial microlenses makes them ideal for creating high-resolution image sensors, particularly biomedical imaging, allowing sharper visualization of subcellular features like protein complexes. In materials science, these microlenses can capture detailed images of nanoscale materials and structures. In diagnostics, they provide clearer imaging of microscopic pathogens like viruses and bacteria, leading to more accurate identification and analysis.

The University of Rochester contributed to this report.

CU Boulder’s Living Materials Laboratory contributed to groundbreaking research showing how engineered microbes can create bioglass microlenses, paving the way for advanced imaging technologies in medicine and materials science.

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Optical image of living microlenses. Engineered microbes focus light that pass through a thin layer of glass that forms on their surface. Photo courtesy of Lynn Sidor, The Meyer Lab, University of Rochester.

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Dept. of Energy offers Prometheus Materials $10M to study CO2 removal in concrete

Susan Glairon — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 15:18:00 +0000

Dept. of Energy offers Prometheus Materials $10M to study CO2 removal in concrete Susan Glairon Fri, 11/15/2024 - 08:18

Prometheus Materials, a zero-carbon building materials company spun out of the labs of Wil Srubar, Mija Hubler and Sherri Cook, along with partner groups will receive $10 million from the DOE to study the removal of carbon dioxide from cement.

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Wil Srubar named associate dean for innovation & entrepreneurship at CU Boulder

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 02:57:03 +0000

Wil Srubar named associate dean for innovation & entrepreneurship at CU Boulder Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 08/27/2024 - 20:57

Professor Wil Srubar has been appointed as CU Boulder’s first Deming Associate Dean for Innovation & Entrepreneurship. This newly created role will focus on fostering innovation by providing education, mentorship and resources to faculty, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students to drive the commercialization of intellectual property.

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CUE Magazine: Building Blocks

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 17:05:15 +0000

CUE Magazine: Building Blocks Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 08/06/2024 - 11:05

CU Boulder faculty developed an eco-friendly cement that emits little to no carbon dioxide and recycles 95 percent of its water. In 2021, they commercialized it as Prometheus Materials. The company produces bio-concrete using blue-green algae, mimicking natural processes that form seashells and coral reefs.

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Wil Srubar selected as 2023 Schmidt Science Polymath

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 15:06:04 +0000

Wil Srubar selected as 2023 Schmidt Science Polymath Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 11/14/2023 - 08:06

Wil Srubar, associate professor in Building Systems Engineering and the Materials Science and Engineering Program, was chosen from more than 58 applicants for his research trajectory to further redefine the boundaries of living architecture — both on Earth and beyond.

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Forbes spotlights CU Boulder green concrete spinout

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 16:14:08 +0000

Forbes spotlights CU Boulder green concrete spinout Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/20/2023 - 10:14

Forbes Magazine is featuring groundbreaking research conducted by faculty members at CU Boulder in the field of eco-friendly concrete.

Cement is a significant contributor to carbon emissions, responsible for about eight percent of global output.

Prometheus Materials, a company co-founded by Wil Srubar and Mija Hubler, associate professors in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, is commercializing an algae-based form of concrete developed from research at CU Boulder.

This new concrete that can be grown in a laboratory and has significant potential to drastically reduce environmental pollution caused by construction activities around the globe.

Read the full article at Forbes...

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CEAE researchers' work published in Concrete International magazine

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 19:28:11 +0000

CEAE researchers' work published in Concrete International magazine Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 08/25/2023 - 13:28

The article, "Carbon-Negative Pilot," was published in the August issue of Concrete International magazine. Authors include Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering researchers Yao Wang, a post doctoral research associate working in Mija Hubler's lab; Associate Professor Mija Hubler; Associate Professor Wil V. Srubar III; Shane Frazier, a graduate student in the Materials Science and Engineering Program, working in the Living Materials Lab under Srubar; and Linfei Li, a postdoctoral researcher in Hubler's lab, and others.

Their research explores the possibility of storing carbon in permanent building elements to reduce our carbon footprint.

The project involved research integrating products from two start-ups which spun out of CU Boulder —Prometheus Materials, a company spun out of the CEAE labs of Srubar, Hubler and Sherri Cook; and Jeff Cameron in Biochemistry at the College of Arts and Sciences; and Minus Materials, which uses microalgae to produce CO2-storing biominerals for the cement and concrete industry.

The article discusses testing a system designed to achieve overall carbon negativity. The system comprises a concrete slab supporting a wall constructed using concrete masonry units (CMUs). The concrete slab was made of alkali-activated cement containing algae-derived carbon-storing, biogenic limestone. The CMUs contain biomineralizing microalgae and a proprietary hydrogel binder as cement replacement.

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