Effect of Microbial-Induced Calcite Precipitation Towards Tropical Organic Soil

Microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) has been used for geotechnical engineering purpose of improving soil properties. This method utilizes the metabolic pathways of non-pathogenic urealytic bacteria to produce calcite (CaCO3) as a binder to bridge soil particles together which lead to increased soil strength and stiffness. Most studies of MICP involving strength improvement were practice with inorganic soil covering sand and fined grain soil. Current study intends to investigate the MICP on the improvement of strength of tropical organic soil. MICP treatment was performed using pre-mixing method instead injection and surface percolation method. Sand as a filler was added to observe its effect on MICP. For this laboratory scale study, the shear response of the treated and untreated samples was evaluated through unconfined compressive strength (UCS) and it was observed that more than 300% increase in strength was achieved.