Bibliometrics and meta-analysis of self-healing bio-concrete - a systematic review

This study comprehensively investigates the literature on using bacteria to confer self-repair abilities on concrete and mortar. Although crack-healing is the main objective, calcite-precipitating bacteria affect concrete's durability and mechanical properties. This article reviews the research on bacteria-based self-healing concrete and its developments from 1984 to 2023. This systematic review was developed by adhering to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. R studio and Vosviewer were used to perform bibliometric analysis and visualization of the 295 documents by 874 authors affiliated with 97 sources acquired from Scopus (NY). It is vital to emphasise that the document selection was carried out by two impartial reviewers to prevent any bias. In addition to repairing cracks in the material, the data indicate that applying various self-healing bacteria improves concrete's mechanical and durability properties. A meta-analysis evaluated the summary effect size of the most cited articles. It was concluded with the statistical evidence from the meta-analysis that bacteria incorporated concrete, which shows self-healing efficiency of 5.07 and 7.29 times than that of control concrete.