Ground improvement and its role in carbon dioxide reduction: a review

Abstract

Environmental global issues affecting global warming, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), have attracted the attention of researchers around the world. This paper reviews and discusses the ground improvement and its contribution to reducing CO2 in the atmosphere. The approach is divided into three parts: the Streamlined Energy and Emissions Assessment Model (SEEAM), the replacement of soil stabilisation materials that lead to the emission of a large amount of CO2 with alternatives and mineral carbonation. A brief discussion about the first two is reviewed in this paper and a detailed discussion about mineral carbonation and its role in enhancing soil strength while absorbing a large amount of CO2. It is emphasised that natural mineral carbonation requires a very long time for a material to reach its full capacity to form CO2; as a result, different acceleration processes can be done from increasing pressure, temperature, the concentration of CO2 and the addition of various additives. In conclusion, it was found that magnesium is more attractive than calcium, and calcium is complicated in terms of strength behaviour. Magnesium has a larger capacity for CO2 sequestration and it has a greater potential to increase soil strength than calcium.