Assessment of different treatment methods by microbial-induced calcite precipitation for clayey soil improvement

Microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) utilises the metabolic pathway of ureolytic bacteria to form calcium carbonate precipitation throughout the soil matrix, leading to increased soil strength and stiffness. MICP has proved to be an efficient technique for treatment of clean sand; however,...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Cheng, Liang, Shahin, Mohamed
Other Authors: X-CD Technologies Inc.
Format: Conference Paper
Published: Canadian Geotechnical Society 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/22082
_version_ 1848750771244367872
author Cheng, Liang
Shahin, Mohamed
author2 X-CD Technologies Inc.
author_facet X-CD Technologies Inc.
Cheng, Liang
Shahin, Mohamed
author_sort Cheng, Liang
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) utilises the metabolic pathway of ureolytic bacteria to form calcium carbonate precipitation throughout the soil matrix, leading to increased soil strength and stiffness. MICP has proved to be an efficient technique for treatment of clean sand; however, there is lack of knowledge for MICP treatment of clayey soils. This paper assesses three different MICP methods including injection, premixing and diffusion, for treatment of clayey sand containing up to 20% clay content. The results indicate that the injection method is applicable only of treating sand columns that contain < 5% clay content, with an exponential relationship between the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) and calcite content similar to that of treated pure sand samples. The premixing method, on the other hand, allowed a homogeneous placement of the bacteria cells in the sand columns and the subsequent injection of cementation solution under low pressure of 100 kPa enabled an adequate bio-cementation along specimens that contain up to 10% clay content, resulting in up to 150% increase in the UCS values. The results also show that sand columns with 20% clay content can be treated using the diffusion method, leading to increased UCS values of up to 200% depending on the treatment duration. The overall conclusion of this study is that bio-cementation of clayey soils is a tremendous challenge and requires further investigation on the ureolytic bacteria placement and supply of cementation solution at large scale before field application.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T07:42:07Z
format Conference Paper
id curtin-20.500.11937-22082
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T07:42:07Z
publishDate 2015
publisher Canadian Geotechnical Society
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-220822017-01-30T12:29:14Z Assessment of different treatment methods by microbial-induced calcite precipitation for clayey soil improvement Cheng, Liang Shahin, Mohamed X-CD Technologies Inc. clayey sand soil ground improvement soil stabilisation Microbial-induced calcite precipitation Microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) utilises the metabolic pathway of ureolytic bacteria to form calcium carbonate precipitation throughout the soil matrix, leading to increased soil strength and stiffness. MICP has proved to be an efficient technique for treatment of clean sand; however, there is lack of knowledge for MICP treatment of clayey soils. This paper assesses three different MICP methods including injection, premixing and diffusion, for treatment of clayey sand containing up to 20% clay content. The results indicate that the injection method is applicable only of treating sand columns that contain < 5% clay content, with an exponential relationship between the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) and calcite content similar to that of treated pure sand samples. The premixing method, on the other hand, allowed a homogeneous placement of the bacteria cells in the sand columns and the subsequent injection of cementation solution under low pressure of 100 kPa enabled an adequate bio-cementation along specimens that contain up to 10% clay content, resulting in up to 150% increase in the UCS values. The results also show that sand columns with 20% clay content can be treated using the diffusion method, leading to increased UCS values of up to 200% depending on the treatment duration. The overall conclusion of this study is that bio-cementation of clayey soils is a tremendous challenge and requires further investigation on the ureolytic bacteria placement and supply of cementation solution at large scale before field application. 2015 Conference Paper http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/22082 Canadian Geotechnical Society restricted
spellingShingle clayey sand soil
ground improvement
soil stabilisation
Microbial-induced calcite precipitation
Cheng, Liang
Shahin, Mohamed
Assessment of different treatment methods by microbial-induced calcite precipitation for clayey soil improvement
title Assessment of different treatment methods by microbial-induced calcite precipitation for clayey soil improvement
title_full Assessment of different treatment methods by microbial-induced calcite precipitation for clayey soil improvement
title_fullStr Assessment of different treatment methods by microbial-induced calcite precipitation for clayey soil improvement
title_full_unstemmed Assessment of different treatment methods by microbial-induced calcite precipitation for clayey soil improvement
title_short Assessment of different treatment methods by microbial-induced calcite precipitation for clayey soil improvement
title_sort assessment of different treatment methods by microbial-induced calcite precipitation for clayey soil improvement
topic clayey sand soil
ground improvement
soil stabilisation
Microbial-induced calcite precipitation
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/22082