Improvements in engineering properties of soils through microbial-induced calcite precipitation

Abstract

Microbial-Induced Calcite Precipitation (MICP) has recently emerged as a sustainable technique for soil improvement. This paper aims to study the effectiveness of MICP in improving the shear strength and reducing the hydraulic conductivity of soils. A species of Bacillus group, B. megaterium was used to trigger the calcite precipitation. The experimental variables included soil types (tropical residual soil and sand), soil densities (85%, 90%, and 95% of their respective maximum densities), and treatment conditions (untreated, treated with cementation reagents only, treated with B. megaterium only, and treated with B. megaterium and cementation reagents). The results showed that MICP could effectively improve shear strength and reduce hydraulic conductivity for both residual soil and sand. The improvements, however, varied with soil densities, soil types, and treatment conditions. With MICP treatment, the improvement ratios in shear strength of the residual soil specimens were significantly higher (1.41–2.64) than those of the sand specimens (1.14–1.25). On the contrary, the sand specimens resulted in greater hydraulic conductivity reduction ratios (0.09–0.15) than those of the residual soil specimens (0.26–0.45). These observations can be explained by the particle-particle contacts per unit volume and pore spaces in the soil specimens. Both soil specimens when treated with cementation reagents only exhibited slight alterations in the shear strength (ranging from 1.06–1.33) and hydraulic conductivity (ranging from 0.69–0.95). The results implied that natural calcite forming microorganisms only exist for insignificant amount. The amount of calcite precipitated in the treated residual soil specimens ranged from 1.080% to 1.889%. The increments of calcite content in the treated sand specimens were comparatively higher, ranging from 2.661% to 6.102%. The results from Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) analysis confirmed the experimental findings.