Effect of reagents concentration on biocementation of tropical residual soil

Abstract

This study explores the feasibility of Bacillus subtilis and optimum reagents concentration used in Microbial-Induced Calcite Precipitation (MICP) treatment of tropical residual soil. Experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of cementation reagents concentration toward MICP treatment. The performance of MICP treatment was assessed by measurement of the soil shear strength and calcite content. Based on the experimental results, it is discovered that the cementation reagent concentration has significantly affected on the performance of MICP treatment. The results suggested that the most preferable MICP treatment reagents concentration is 0.25M with the presence of Bacillus subtilis; using these treatment parameters, both UCS value and calcite content of treated soil had increased about 38% and 65.6% respectively. However, the reduction in UCS value was manifested for those samples treated at higher reagents concentration (0.35M); this phenomenon is attributed to the salinity of reagents where high salinity is not favourable to the bacteria growth and microbial activity; subsequently, this resulted in a consequential decrease in shear strength of the treated soil.