The progress and trend of Microbially Induced Carbonate Precipitation (MICP) research: a bibliometric analysis

Microbially Induced Carbonate Precipitation (MICP) has emerged as a significant technology in the domains of energy conservation, environmental protection, and sustainable ecology, witnessing rapid advancements in recent years. Therefore, it is very important to understand the knowledge structure and development of this field comprehensively and systematically. Employing the bibliometric visualization tool CiteSpace, this study analyzes 1935 academic articles and reviews sourced from the core collection of the Web of Science (WOS) database. The analysis primarily encompasses collaboration networks, keyword co-occurrence, co-citation analysis, and cluster analysis. The results show that: (1) there are still many isolated nodes in authors, institutional and national networks, indicating that cooperation in this field continues to strengthen; (2) Hot topics include: bacteria, cementation, improvement, soil, sand and biomineralization, etc., which are high-frequency keywords in this field. In addition, terms such as biofilm, chemistry, calcification, and cementitious material emerge as highly influential keywords, reflecting the research hotspots in this field. (3) The co-citation analysis reveals interconnected topics in this field, such as biocemented sand, microbial-induced precipitation, engineered applications, microbial diversity, and self-healing concrete, these topics are current research hotspots. This paper is intended to serve as a comprehensive theoretical and practical resource for guiding future research in the MICP domain.