Improving the spatial control of soil biocementation using indigenous microorganisms: Column experiments and reactive transport modeling

Abstract

Microbially-Induced Calcite Precipitation (MICP), or biocementation, is a biomediated soil improvement process that uses microbial ureolytic activity to enable the precipitation of CaCO3 on soil particle surfaces and contacts. As the technology advances towards practical adoption, approaches that can modulate the spatial uniformity of biocementation and maximize treatment extent will be critical towards reducing implementation costs and impacts. In this study, treatment strategies capable of enriching indigenous ureolytic microorganisms at controlled ureolytic activities and the effects of these techniques on resulting spatial distributions of MICP were explored using centimeter- and meter-scale soil column experiments and reactive transport simulations. In column experiments, differences in treatment solution supplied yeast extract concentrations were shown to reliably control the enrichment of indigenous ureolytic microorganisms and achieve a wide range of ureolytic activities. Reactive transport simulations further demonstrated that reductions in stimulated ureolytic rates could enable more uniform improvement and increases in the extent of improvement with reduced sensitivity to changes in solution injection velocities. A reaction-to-injection duration ratio (RTIDR) parameter was proposed and captured the collective impacts of changes in injection rates and ureolytic reaction rates on reactive transport conditions thereby unifying outcomes from both simulations and experiments. A nonuniformity area (NA) parameter was also introduced to quantitatively characterize differences in biocementation uniformity independent of length scale and CaCO3 magnitudes. Results from this study collectively demonstrate the utility of changes in stimulated ureolytic activities towards controlling the spatial uniformity and extent of biocementation over meter-scale distances.