Eco-friendly soil stabilization method using fish bone as cement material

Abstract

The method of soil improvement by calcium phosphate precipitation is a novel, environmentally friendly, and non-toxic technique. Such technology provides advantages over ureolytic induced calcite precipitation (UICP), the most popular and widely used method in the field of geotechnical engineering. In this paper, an investigation of the consolidation of fine and coarse sand samples by enzyme induced calcium phosphate precipitation (EICPP) was carried out. Tuna bones were used as an alternative source of calcium and phosphorus ions, as one of the most popular fish species in Japan and the main source of food industry waste. Unconfined compressive strength (UCS) of the samples after 21 days of daily injection of the solution showed an increase in strength up to 6,05 MPa in fine and up to 4,3 MPa in coarse sand samples. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) analysis were performed to investigate the nature and type of deposition. Analyses confirmed that deposition is composed of brushite with needle-like crystals in the case of Toyoura sand and flower-like crystals in the case of Mikawa sand. SEM-EDS showed a presence of both, calcium, and phosphorus in the precipitate, indicating the presence of calcium phosphate compounds (CPCs). This study reveals that tuna bones are a rich source of calcium and phosphorus for EICPP, which results in a strengthening of silicate soil up to 3.4–6.05 MPa and is able to reduce ammonia emissions by 85.7 % - 97.5 % compared to UICP.