Abstract
The development of alternatives to soil stabilization through mechanical and chemical stabilization has paved the way for the development of biostabilization methods. Since its development, researchers have used different bacteria species for soil treatment. Soil treatment through bioremediation techniques has been used to understand its effect on strength parameters and contaminant remediation. Using a living organism for binding the soil grains to make the soil mass dense and durable is the basic idea of soil biotreatment. Bacteria and enzymes are commonly utilized in biostabilization, which is a common method to encourage ureolysis, leading to calcite precipitation in the soil mass. Microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) and enzyme-induced calcite precipitation (EICP) techniques are emerging trends in soil stabilization. Unlike conventional methods, these techniques are environmentally friendly and sustainable. This review determines the challenges, applicability, advantages, and disadvantages of MICP and EICP in soil treatment and their role in the improvement of the geotechnical and geoenvironmental properties of soil. It further elaborates on their probable mechanism in improving the soil properties in the natural and lab environments. Moreover, it looks into the effectiveness of biostabilization as a remediation of soil contamination. This review intends to present a hands-on adoptable treatment method for in situ implementation depending on specific site conditions.
Highlights
Improving soil properties has become inevitable when finding available places with soils of considerable strength is difficult
Mechanical stabilization involves the process of densifying the soil mass by expelling air voids with nominal variation in water content for better performance, whereas chemical stabilization involves amending the soil with additives to achieve the desired density, reduce permeability, or improve soil strength [5]
This review considers the available research studies conducted on the enzyme-induced calcite precipitation (EICP) and Microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) techniques and discusses their applicability and challenges in geotechnical and geoenvironmental applications
Summary
Improving soil properties has become inevitable when finding available places with soils of considerable strength is difficult. Chemical stabilization has attracted greater attention due to its effectiveness in soil improvement using traditional binders with a calcium base, like lime, fly ash, and cement, or novel stabilizers, like acids, salts, lignosulfonates, enzymes, petroleum emulsions, resins, and polymers [7] In this method, the additives must be mechanically mixed with the soil in its natural state. This method of soil stabilization through the precipitation of CaCO3 with the use of enzymes instead of microorganisms is called enzyme-induced calcite precipitation (EICP) [30,31,32,33] This method has a wide range of engineering applications for soil treatment such as stabilizing slopes, avoiding erosion due to wind and water, reducing the scouring of soil, checking the seepage beneath levees, improving the bearing capacity of soil, tunnelling, and controlling seismic.
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