3D printing new homes for corals, featured at WORLD.MINDS
The world is facing the death of up to 90% of all coral reefs by 2050, mostly due to global warming.
At the Institute of Environmental Engineering, Dr. Ulrike Pfreundt from Prof. Roman Stocker’s group is working on a technology to help prevent that, which she presented this December at Zurich’s external pageWORLD.MINDS event.
Leveraging the group’s expertise in fluid mechanics, and in collaboration with D-ARCH and WSL, the marine biologist is developing artificial reefs using digital design and 3D sand printing. The aim is to create structures that are an optimal settling ground – a new home – for young corals where significant damage to a reef has occurred.
The lack of the right structure and resulting lack of recruitment success of new corals is a fundamental bottleneck for reefs to recover from damage.
The crux is to understand the interaction of coral larvae with the topography of the surface in the flow conditions typical of reef environments. Beyond the vital goal of reducing CO2 emissions, this restoration technology can contribute to restore reefs by favoring the critical early stage of larval settling.
