Improvements in saline soil and the law of water-salt transport based on salt inhibition using MICP technology

Abstract

Soil desertification and salinization are the main environmental disasters in arid and semi-arid areas. It is of great significance to study the water - salt migration law of saline soil and propose corresponding water- salt regulation and control measures. Microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) technology was proposed to improve saline soil based on salt inhibition, and the water-salt-heat coupling migration law and salt-frost heave deformation law of saline soil before and after improvement were studied using soil column model tests. XR1#, XR2#（Saline-alkali-tolerant mineralization bacteria isolated from saline soil) and Sporosarcina pasteurii were used in the MICP improvement and the effect of XR1# was the best. Under high-temperature evaporation, the water migration change rate, water loss rate, accumulated evaporation amount, and accumulated salt content of the improved soil columns within a depth range of 0-40 cm were reduced by an average of 53.6 %, 47.3 %, 69.5 %, and 40 %, respectively, compared with the untreated soil column. During low-temperature cooling, the characteristics of water-salt migration changed significantly, and the deformation of salt-frost heave decreased significantly. The water-salt content at the freezing point (−4.5 °C) changed from a cliff-like steep drop (untreated saline soil) to a slow decrease at environmental temperature (MICP-treated saline soil), and the amount of water crystallization decreased from 81 % to 56.7 % at −5 °C. At the end of the cooling process, the amount of salt-frost heaving on the surface of the soil columns decreased by an average of 62.7 %. Based on the measured data, a numerical simulation was conducted using the HYDRUS-1D model, which had good reliability and accurately simulated and predicted the law of water-salt migration in saline soil under the conditions of microbial solidification and improvement. MICP technology significantly reduced the change rate of water-salt migration and water evaporation in saline soil, hindered salt accumulation, and reduced salt-frost heave deformation, which effectively improved saline soil. The research results provide an important innovation and theoretical basis for the improvement of saline soil.

Keywords

Microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) / Saline soil / Soil improvement / Water-salt transport

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Xiaorong Wang: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Writing - original draft. Chi Li: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Writing - review & editing. Yanru Shi: Formal analysis, Methodology. Zhenguo Zhang: Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology. Qingguo Chi: Formal analysis, Software. Panshi Wang: Investigation.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. Chi Li is the editorial board member for Biogeotechnics and was not involved in the editorial review or the decision to publish this article.

Acknowledgment

This study was funded by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51968057), (No. 52378348), (No. 12262031); Natural Science Foundation of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China (No. 2023QN04016), (No. 2019LH05028); Basic scientific research business fees for universities directly under the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China (No. JY20220204); Doctoral Research Foundation of Inner Mongolia University of Technology of China (No. DC2300001265).

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