An Eco-Friendly Polymer Composite Fertilizer for Soil Fixation, Slope Stability, and Erosion Control

Abstract

In the Loess Plateau region, the poor structure and properties of loess slopes will cause many types of geological disasters such as landslides, mudflow, land collapse, soil erosion, and ground cracking. In this paper, an eco-friendly polymer composite fertilizer (PCF) based on corn straw wastes (CS) and geopolymer synthesized from loess was studied. The characterization by FT-IR of the PCF confirmed that graft copolymer is formed, while morphological analysis by scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy showed that geopolymer and urea were embedded in the polymer porous network. The effects of PCF contents on the compressive strength of loess were investigated. The PCF was characterized in terms of surface curing test, temperature and freeze-thaw aging property, water and wind erosion resistance, and remediation soil acidity and alkalinity property, which indicates that PCF can improve loess slope fixation and stability by physical and chemical effects. Moreover, the loess slope planting experiment showed that PCF can significantly increase the germination rate of vegetation from 31% to 68% and promote the survival rate of slope vegetation from 45.2% to 67.7% to enhance biological protection for loess slopes. The PCF meets the demands of building and roadbed slope protection and water-soil conservation in arid and semi-arid regions, which opens a new application field for multifunctional polymer composite fertilizers with low cost and environmental remediation.

A State-of-the-Art Review of Organic Polymer Modifiers for Slope Eco-Engineering

“…Li et al [156] developed an environment-friendly polymer compound fertilizer (PCF). The slope planting test showed that the PCF could significantly promote plant growth.…”

A One-Phase Injection Method to Improve the Strength and Uniformity in MICP with Polycarboxylic Acid Added

“…These efforts primarily focus on re ning the grouting process [4,20,29] or incorporating speci c admixtures [28,43,45]. Despite these advancements, a noticeable gap still exists in achieving widespread industrial eld application [15,23,25,35,26,24]. To address the imperative of achieving overall uniformity in calcium carbonate distribution, current MICP reinforcement methods predominantly favor the two-phase injection approach [3,22,37].…”