Biogeochemical processes and geotechnical applications: progress, opportunities and challenges
By J. DeJong, Kenichi Soga, E. Kavazanjian, S. Burns, L. Paassen, A. A. Qabany, A. Aydilek, S. Bang, Malcolm Burbank, L. Caslake and 24 more. 2013
745 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Consideration of soil as a living ecosystem offers the potential for innovative and sustainable solutions to geotechnical problems. This is a new paradigm for many in geotechnical engineering. Realising the potential of this paradigm requires a multidisciplinary approach that embraces biology and geochemistry to develop techniques for beneficial ground modification. This paper assesses the progress, opportunities, and challenges in this emerging field. Biomediated geochemical processes, which consist of a geochemical reaction regulated by subsurface microbiology, currently being explored include mineral precipitation, gas generation, biofilm formation and biopolymer generation. For each of these processes, subsurface microbial processes are employed to create an environment conducive to the desired geochemical reactions among the minerals, organic matter, pore fluids, and gases that constitute soil. Geotechnical applications currently being explored include cementation of sands to enhance bearing capacity and liquefaction resistance, sequestration of carbon, soil erosion control, groundwater flow control, and remediation of soil and groundwater impacted by metals and radionuclides. Challenges in biomediated ground modification include upscaling processes from the laboratory to the field, in situ monitoring of reactions, reaction products and properties, developing integrated biogeochemical and geotechnical models, management of treatment by-products, establishing the durability and longevity/reversibility of the process, and education of engineers and researchers.
Subfields: Civil and Structural Engineering, Environmental Engineering
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5faed591ef90885d9307877f69bb342403c84bc0
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Civil and Structural Engineering
In Environmental Engineering
Citations in the corpus
- A microfluidic chip and its use in characterising the particle-scale behaviour of microbial-induced calcium carbonate precipitation (MICP) (2018, background): “…soil stabilisation technique which has been extensively studied for applications such as ground improvement, liquefaction prevention, dam safety, erosion prevention and slope stabilisation 2 (van Paassen, 2009; DeJong et al., 2013; Martinez et al., 2013; Montoya et al., 2013; Jiang et al., 2017).”
- Digging deeper: A holistic perspective of factors affecting soil organic carbon sequestration in agroecosystems (2018, background): “An enhanced understand- ing of biochemical processes of SOC sequestration and of soil ero- sion control through pedo-technical applications can create additional opportunities of C sequestration (Dejong et al., 2013).”
- Carbonate Precipitation through Microbial Activities in Natural Environment, and Their Potential in Biotechnology: A Review (2016, background): “Bacteria are omnipresent in soils at surprisingly high concentrations, almost regardless of saturation, mineralogy, pH, and other environmental factors (De Jong et al., 2013; Sel et al., 2015).”
- Effects of Bacterial Density on Growth Rate and Characteristics of Microbial-Induced CaCO3 Precipitates: Particle-Scale Experimental Study (2020, background): “…(MICP) has been extensively investigated for applications such as ground improvement, soil liquefaction mitigation, dam safety control, prevention of soil erosion, and slope stabilisation (van Paassen, 2009; DeJong et al., 2013; Martinez et al., 2013; Montoya et al., 2013; Jiang et al., 2017).”
- The interplay between microbial communities and soil properties (2023, neutral): “MICP can be achieved by many different processes 155,156 , and both biostimulation (that is, the stimulation of indigenous urea-hydrolysing bacteria by providing the appropriate nutrient medium) 157 and bioaugmentation (that is, the inoculation of exogenous bacteria together with the precipitation…”