A novel study on using protein based biopolymers in soil strengthening

Fatehi, Hadi; Abtahi, Sayyed Mahdi; Hashemolhosseini, Hamid; Hejazi, Sayyed Mahdi

doi:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2018.02.028

Cited by 152 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Several studies have shown that xanthan gum can be used successfully to improve the unconfined compressive strength and stiffness of sands [17,[31][32][33], silty sands [34], clays [17,35], residual soils [36], bentonite, kaolinite [17,25,37], and soft marine clays [24], as well the undrained shear strength of mine tailing material [38]. Additionally, experimental results revealed that the most favourable xanthan gum content for soil stabilization is in the range of 1-1.5% for ambient curing and oven curing [39] and 2.5% for curing in submerged conditions [35].…”

Section: Mechanical Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review on the Importance of Microbial Biopolymers Such as Xanthan Gum to Improve Soil Properties

et al. 2020

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Chemical stabilization of soils is one of the most used techniques to improve the properties of weak soils in order to allow their use in geotechnical works. Although several binders can be used for this purpose, Portland cement is still the most used binder (alone or combined with others) to stabilize soils. However, the use of Portland cement is associated with many environmental problems, so microbiological-based approaches have been explored to replace conventional methods of soil stabilization as sustainable alternatives. Thus, the use of biopolymers, produced by microorganisms, has emerged as a technical alternative for soil improvement, mainly due to soil pore-filling, which is called the bioclogging method. Many studies have been carried out in the last few years to investigate the suitability and efficiency of the soil–biopolymer interaction and consequent properties relevant to geotechnical engineering. This paper reviews some of the recent applications of the xanthan gum biopolymer to evaluate its viability and potential to improve soil properties. In fact, recent results have shown that the use of xanthan gum in soil treatment induces the partial filling of the soil voids and the generation of additional links between the soil particles, which decreases the permeability coefficient and increases the mechanical properties of the soil. Moreover, the biopolymer’s economic viability was also analyzed in comparison to cement, and studies have demonstrated that xanthan gum has a strong potential, both from a technical and economical point of view, to be applied as a soil treatment.

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Section: Mechanical Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review on the Importance of Microbial Biopolymers Such as Xanthan Gum to Improve Soil Properties

et al. 2020

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“…However, the overdependence on cement has given rise to several environmental concerns, including large CO2 emission, natural resource depletion and dust generation. The OPC production is an extremely energy consuming process (5000 MJ/t PC) which causes a CO2 emission of about 0.7-1.1 tonne per tonne of OPC [4][5][6]. Apart from the environmental drawbacks, OPC often shows a high plastic shrinkage and a reduction of mechanical strength due to the loss of water and incomplete hydration at early ages [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clayey soil stabilization using geopolymer and Portland cement

Ghadir

Ranjbar

2018

Construction and Building Materials

287

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This study compares the mechanical performance of clayey soil stabilization using volcanic ash (VA) based geopolymer and ordinary Portland cement (OPC). The effects of curing conditions and time, alkali activator/clay and alkali activator molarity, and VA/clay ratio are determined. The compressive strength of the untreated clayey soil specimens could be increased from 0.2 to 4 MPa and 2 to 12 MPa at the OC and DC conditions, respectively, when the soil partially replaced by 15 wt% of the binders. It is observed that geopolymer treatment is more efficient at the dry conditions (DC) while the Portland cement is superb at the wet environments (OC). This difference is associated with the role of water and pH in the kinetics of geopolymerization and the Portland cement hydration. Moreover, increasing the molarity of alkali activator and alkali activator/clay improve the compressive strength of the geopolymer treated soil. Besides, the higher energy absorption in all geopolymer specimens shows the superior ductility of this material in comparison with OPC.

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“…For those natural soils that have insufficient mechanical strength, soil treatment is often employed [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. Recently, the incorporation of biopolymers into soil stabilisation has gained increasing credence in sustainable geotechnical engineering for their environmental benefits [8][9][10][11], high strengthening efficiency [12][13][14], abundance in nature [15][16][17], suitable functional properties such as pH stability and ionic salt compatibility [18][19][20] and reasonable prices [8,21,22]. Selected polysaccharide biopolymers (e.g., xanthan gum, agar gum, gellan gum, chitosan, beta-glucan, starch, guar gum and carrageenan) have proved their potential in improving the soil performances under external loads in terms of unconfined compression, triaxial compression, direct shear, interface shear, tension, three-point bending and split [20,[23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Optimisation Analysis of Sand-Clay Mixtures Stabilised with Xanthan Gum Biopolymers

Hao

Chen

et al. 2021

Sustainability

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Sand–clay mixtures can be encountered in both natural soils (e.g., residual soils, clay deposits and clinosols) and artificial fills. The method of utilising biopolymers in ground improvement for sand–clay mixtures has emerged recently. However, a full understanding of the strengthening effect of biopolymer-treated sand–clay mixtures has not yet been achieved due to a limited number of relevant studies. In this study, xanthan gum (XG), as one of the eco-friendly biopolymers, was used to treat reconstituted sand–clay mixtures that had various compositions in related to clay (or sand) content and clay type (kaolin and bentonite). A series of laboratory unconfined compression strength (UCS) tests were conducted to probe the performances of XG-treated sand–clay mixtures from two aspects, i.e., optimum treatment conditions (e.g., XG content and initial moisture content) to achieve the maximum strengthening effect and strengthening efficiency for the sand–clay mixtures with different compositions. The experimental results indicated that the optimum initial moisture content decreased as the sand content increased. The optimum XG content, which also decreased with the increasing sand content, remained approximately 3.75% for all sand–kaolin mixtures and 5.75% for all sand–bentonite mixtures if calculated based on clay fraction. While untreated sand–kaolin mixtures and sand–bentonite mixtures had comparable UCS values, XG-treated sand–kaolin mixtures seemed to have better improved mechanical strength due to higher ionic (or hydrogen) bonds with XG and low-swelling properties compared with bentonite. The deformation modulus of XG-treated sand–clay mixtures were positively related with UCS. The variation in UCS and stiffness for each treatment condition increased as the sand content was elevated for both sand-kaolin and sand-bentonite mixtures. An increment in the proportion of the heterogeneous composite formed by irregular sand particles conglomerated with the XG–clay matrix in total soil might be responsible for this phenomenon.

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A novel study on using protein based biopolymers in soil strengthening

Cited by 152 publications

References 22 publications

A Review on the Importance of Microbial Biopolymers Such as Xanthan Gum to Improve Soil Properties

A Review on the Importance of Microbial Biopolymers Such as Xanthan Gum to Improve Soil Properties

Clayey soil stabilization using geopolymer and Portland cement

The Optimisation Analysis of Sand-Clay Mixtures Stabilised with Xanthan Gum Biopolymers

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