The use of biopolymer to improve the performance of microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP)-treated sands is a novel and eco-friendly concept. This work found an anionic biopolymer, γ-polyglutamate (γ-PGA), could significantly improve the performance of MICP-treated sands. Comparing the control with absence of γ-PGA, the concentration of 0.1–9 g/L γ-PGA increased the compressive strength of MICP-treated sands by 1.54–3.96 times and significantly reduced the brittleness. The MICP process analysis and microstructural detection demonstrated that γ-PGA in the specimens provided many nucleation sites and templates for calcite generation, partially kept the bacterial urease activity by replacement of the bacteria as nucleation sites, thereby improving the calcite generation. The γ-PGA also cemented sand grains with calcite through the hydrogen bond-type intermolecular interactions. Both the calcite generation and the hydrogen bond-type intermolecular interactions by γ-PGA played vital roles in enhancing MICP for soil improvement. Additionally, γ-PGA, as a viscoelastic admixture between the crystals and sand grains, effectively dissipated the energy of stress and thus reduced the brittleness of MICP-treated sands. This is the first report on the application of anionic biopolymer to MICP technology. It provides a novel concept in promoting the efficiency and sustainability of MICP.
相似文献Kitchen waste and wind erosion are two worldwide environmental concerns. This study investigated the feasibility of using kitchen waste for Sporosarcina pasteurii cultivation and its application in wind erosion control of desert soil via microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP). Enzymatic hydrolysis was adopted to improve the release and recovery of protein in kitchen waste for subsequent microorganism production. After conditions optimized, the maximum biomass concentration (OD600) and urease activity of Sporosarcina pasteurii in the kitchen waste-based medium reached 4.19, and 14.32 mM urea min?1, respectively, which were comparable to those obtained in conventional standard media. The harvested Sporosarcina pasteurii was then used to catalyze the precipitation of calcium carbonate in the desert soil, and its performance in wind erosion control was evaluated through wind tunnel tests. The microbially mediated calcium carbonate could significantly decrease wind erosion loss of the desert soil even after 12 wet–dry or freeze–thaw cycles. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) confirmed the bridge effect of calcium carbonate crystals in the soil matrix. The kitchen waste, as a cost-effective alternative nutrient for bacterial cultivation and carbonate precipitation, showed great potential for large-scale applications in wind erosion control of desert soils.
相似文献Microbially induced calcite precipitation (MICP) is an innovative bio-mediated soil improvement technique that develops cementation within originally loose and potentially collapsible soils. This method utilizes biogeochemical processes with microbes. It has the advantage of being friendly to the environment and sustainable. In spite of the current interest in the MICP technique, the mechanical modeling of MICP-treated soils is still limited. In this paper, a constitutive model for MICP-treated sands is presented. The core components of the proposed approach include: a critical state yield surface, sub-loading concepts, a mechanism to account for the MICP-induced cementation enhancement, and an evolution law to consider bonding degradation effects during shearing. The mathematical framework is presented in detail. The model is then applied to analyze recently published experiments involving MICP-treated samples, with different calcite contents, and tested under different conditions (i.e., various confining pressure and loading paths). The model was able to properly capture the main features of MICP-treated sands behavior observed in the tests. It also assisted to interpret the response of this type of soil under different loading conditions.
相似文献Microbially induced calcium carbonate (CaCO3) precipitation (MICP) has been extensively studied for soil improvement in geotechnical engineering. The quantity and size of calcium carbonate crystals affect the strength of MICP-treated soil. In this study, microfluidic chip experiments and soil column experiments were conducted to optimize MICP treatment protocols for effective strength enhancement of MICP-treated sandy soils. The microscale experiments reveal that, due to Ostwald ripening, longer injection intervals allow crystals to dissolve and reprecipitate into larger crystals regardless of the concentration of cementation solution. Even though a cementation solution input rate of 0.042 mol/l/h is sufficient to maintain a high chemical transformation efficiency, a further reduction in the input rate by about four times resulted in an increase in the size of crystals produced by the end of treatment from about 40 to 60 μm. These findings were applied in soil column experiments. Results showed that significantly larger crystals and higher soil strength were achieved when the normalized rate of cementation solution injection was reduced from 0.042 to 0.021 mol/l/h. Crystal size and soil strength increased slightly more when the normalized input rate was further reduced from 0.021 to 0.010 mol/l/h. This study demonstrates how data from microscale microfluidic experiments that examine the effects of injection intervals and concentration of cementation solution on the properties of calcium carbonate crystals can be used to optimize MICP treatment in macroscale sand soil column experiments for effective strength enhancement.
相似文献Enzyme induced carbonate precipitation (EICP) is an emerging soil improvement method using free urease enzyme for urea hydrolysis. This method has advantages over the commonly used microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) process as it does not involve issues related to bio-safety. However, in terms of efficiency of calcium carbonate production, EICP is considered lower than that of MICP. In this paper, a high efficiency EICP method is proposed. The key of this new method is to adopt a one-phase injection of low pH solution strategy. In this so-called one-phase-low-pH method, EICP solution consisting of a mixture of urease solution of pH?=?6.5, urea and calcium chloride is injected into soil. The test results have shown that the one-phase-low-pH method can improve significantly the calcium conversion efficiency and the uniformity of calcium carbonate distribution in the sand samples as compared with the conventional two-phase EICP method. Furthermore, the unconfined compressive strength of sand treated using the one-phase-low-pH method is much higher than that using the two-phase method and the one-phase-low-pH method is also simpler and more efficient as it involves less number of injections.
相似文献Concentration of cementation solution (CCS) is one of the key factors influencing the cementation effect on soil improvement through the microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) process. To precipitate more calcium carbonate per treatment, a higher CCS is needed. However, the MICP process may be retarded or even terminated with an increase in CCS. This retarding effect can be a major limitation for the MICP-based soil treatment and thus needs to be understood properly. This paper presents a systematic study on the conditions causing retarding and its effect on biocementation. The test results of this study have identified that there is retarding effect of CCS on the MICP process, showing that the calcium conversion efficiency, which represents the amount of calcium that has been converted into calcium carbonate in each treatment, reduces with the increase in CCS, and the concentration of calcium is the control factor. The retarding effect will dominate increasingly when CCS is higher than 1.0 M and the amount of calcium carbonate precipitation will reduce for the given amount and type of bacteria used in this study and become zero with CCS of 2.5 M. For the same calcium carbonate content, the unconfined compressive strength is greater for sand treated using a lower CCS as the contribution to the bonding strength by the calcium carbonate generated under a lower CCS is greater than that under a higher CCS.
相似文献Coral sand, which is an important filler resource in coastal areas, is continuously subjected to repeated waves or traffic loading. In this study, a series of oedometer tests are conducted on coral sand and silica sand under repeated loading, and the results are compared. The influence of the initial density and number and amplitude of repeated loading on the volumetric deformation, soil stiffness, and particle breakage are investigated. The results reveal that the volumetric deformation and particle breakage of coral sand mainly occur in the first loading stage and increase by increasing loading amplitude and reducing initial density. Compared to silica sand, the soil stiffness is lower and volumetric deformation is greater in coral sand during the initial loading stage. However, the opposite trend is observed for the subsequent loading. Finally, three power functions are proposed to predict the volumetric deformation and particle breakage of coral sand under repeated loading.
相似文献Acoustic emission (AE) technique that is capable of diagnosing the failure process of stressed materials has rarely reported its application to sandy soils subjected to triaxial compression. In this paper, drained triaxial compression tests incorporating with a high-performance AE measurement system were conducted for dry sands with different confining stresses and initial relative densities. Generally, an increased confining stress or initial relative density generates more acoustic emissions, while there also exist exceptions due to different failure patterns. A good resemblance between stress–strain and AE hit rate–strain relations was observed, and power functions between the mechanical parameters and AE hit rate were well established regardless of different confining stresses and initial relative densities. Besides, the behavioral state of yield and peak during compression could be also evaluated by AE hit rate, compared with conventional stress–strain determination. Particularly, the peak AE hit rate is found not always synchronous to but fluctuating at around the peak stress depending on different failure patterns, which might provide beneficial insights into the incipient failure of sands. The present good consistencies suggest that AE characteristics could be used as alternative parameters to evaluate and even predict the mechanical behavior of dry sands.
相似文献Globally, coral reefs are threatened by ocean warming and acidification. The degree to which acidification will impact reefs is dependent on the local hydrodynamics, benthic community composition, and biogeochemical processes, all of which vary on different temporal and spatial scales. Characterizing the natural spatiotemporal variability of seawater carbonate chemistry across different reefs is critical for elucidating future impacts on coral reefs. To date, most studies have focused on select habitats, whereas fewer studies have focused on reef scale variability. Here, we investigate the temporal and spatial seawater physicochemical variability across the entire Heron Island coral reef platform, Great Barrier Reef, Australia, for a limited duration of six days. Autonomous sensor measurements at three sites across the platform were complemented by reef-wide boat surveys and discrete sampling of seawater carbonate chemistry during the morning and evening. Variability in both temporal and spatial physicochemical properties were predominantly driven by solar irradiance (and its effect on biological activity) and the semidiurnal tidal cycles but were influenced by the local geomorphology resulting in isolation of the platform during low tide and rapid flooding during rising tides. As a result, seawater from previous tidal cycles was sometimes trapped in different parts of the reef leading to unexpected biogeochemical trends in space and time. This study illustrates the differences and limitations of data obtained from high-frequency measurements in a few locations compared to low-frequency measurements at high spatial resolution and coverage, showing the need for a combined approach to develop predictive capability of seawater physicochemical properties on coral reefs.
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