A Marine Building Material of the Future

Both past and ongoing research programs have demonstrated the feasibility of using an electrodeposition process to make fairly small scaled structural elements. Electrodeposition is facilitated by passing an electrical current between an anode and a cathode that are located in sea water which acts as an electrolyte. If the marine conditions are suitable, a hard thick protective coating of magnesium and calcium salts will precipitate onto the cathode to form a material matrix which displays many of the strength characteristics of reinforced concrete. This paper outlines a series of experiments which has been completed to demonstrate that material elements of sufficient size to be of use in civil engineering applications can be made by this accretion process.