Performance of Contaminated Soil Blended with Sodium Silicate

Around the world, agile growth in urbanization and industrialization led to increase in generation of solid wastes. Most of the time these solid wastes are not disposed properly. It is either disposed in dump sites or landfills. This improper disposal becomes the source of soil pollution. The soils at this disposal sites are highly contaminated which may affect the public health. The need of the hour is to stabilize this contaminated soil and to improve its geotechnical properties. Hence an attempt was made to improve the characteristics of contaminated soil through chemical stabilization using Sodium Silicate (Na2SiO3) as an admixture. Past researches reveal that Sodium Silicate solutions enhance the strength and bearing capacity of expansive soils. In this study 2%, 4%, 6%, 10%, 15% and 20% of Sodium Silicate were added to the sterilized contaminated soils. Index properties, compaction behaviour, strength and CBR characteristics of the soil with Sodium Silicate was analysed. The results show that Sodium Silicate has negligible effect on the contaminated soils of low plasticity. However with 4% of Sodium Silicate, settling characteristics reduced than that of contaminated soil.