High-Throughput Biomining of Insect Proteins for Earthen Material Stabilization

Abstract Here, for the first time, the potential of insect biomass as a source of biopolymer stabilizers for earthen materials is explored. To address the heterogeneity, complexity, and combinatorial intensity associated with optimizing insect biopolymer-stabilized earthen materials, a micro-to-macro experimental pipeline, the Rapid Extraction and Binding Assessment Technique (REBAT) is introduced. By combining multiwell platforms with UV analysis, REBAT increases the rate of discovery of biopolymer stabilizers by ∼500 times compared with traditional trial-and-error approaches and ∼150 times compared with existing micro-to-macro methodologies. Using REBAT, strength gains in kaolinite earth stabilized with extracted cricket-, silkworm-, and locust-derived biopolymers (1.7–2.2×, up to 2.18 MPa) were found to strongly correlate with the mass of extracted protein (R2 = 0.66). Complementary microscale analyses (XRD, ATR-FTIR, and zeta potential analysis) indicated that stabilization arises from protein β-sheet structures forming van der Waals interfacial interactions between clay platelets. Through this framework, locust protein biomass rich in β-sheet structures emerged as the optimal source of biopolymer stabilizers for kaolinite earthen material stabilization. This high-throughput characterization pipeline provides a scalable, data-driven strategy for discovering new biopolymer stabilizers for earthen construction from mixed biomass sources.