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Soil bio-cementation using an improved 2-step injection method

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Abstract

To improve the uniformity of calcium carbonate distribution in soil treated by microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP), an improved biological injection method, namely “2-step method”, was proposed. This method was achieved by first injecting a certain volume of pure bacterial suspension into soil, followed by injecting the remaining pore volume with the mixed bacterial suspension, which was prepared by mixing pure bacterial suspension and fixation solution containing CaCl2. The method was validated through various physical and mechanical properties of the bio-cemented sand, including the bacterial adsorption efficiency, calcium carbonate content and distribution, and unconfined compressive strength. The results showed that the proposed 2-step method could effectively improve the bacterial adsorption, calcium carbonate content, and strength of bio-cemented sand. The prepared bio-cemented sand had relatively uniform distribution of calcium carbonate and higher strength. The optimal volume ratio between the mixed bacterial suspension and pure bacterial suspension for the 2-step method was 0.6:0.4.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their gratitude for these financial assistances. Special thanks go to the Analytical and Testing Center at the Huazhong University of Science & Technology for providing an Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope.

Funding

This work was funded by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2016YFC0800200), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (No. 51708243 and No. 51878313), and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2016M600595, No. 2018M632862, and No. 2018T110769).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geotechnical and Underground Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Ming-Juan Cui, Jun-Jie Zheng, Rong-Jun Zhang & Han-Jiang Lai

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  1. Ming-Juan Cui
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  2. Jun-Jie Zheng
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  3. Rong-Jun Zhang
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  4. Han-Jiang Lai
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Correspondence to Jun-Jie Zheng.

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Responsible Editor: Zeynal Abiddin Erguler

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Cui, MJ., Zheng, JJ., Zhang, RJ. et al. Soil bio-cementation using an improved 2-step injection method. Arab J Geosci 13, 1270 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-020-06168-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-020-06168-y

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