APPLICABILITY OF BIOCEMENTATION

ON PERMEABILITY OF ORGANIC SOIL

Firman Syarif
Universitas Islam Riau, Indonesia, firmansyarif@eng.uir.ac.id
Muhammad Ferry Hardianto
Universitas Islam Riau, Indonesia

Abstract

Nowadays, the use of bacterial calcium carbonate precipitation (bio cementation) has
become popular as a ground improvement technique for sandy soil. However, this
technique was not too much applied to organic or peat soil. Indonesia has a very large
percentage of swamp and peat areas. About 30% of the land in Indonesia is swamp /
peat areas. On the island of Sumatra, the province with the largest peat land is Riau
Province with an area of ± 4, 04 million ha or 56.1% of the total area of peat land in
Sumatra. Siak is one of the districts in Riau which has a fairly large area. Many
problem occurs because of the peat during the construction of infrastructure in Siak.
This study focused on bacterial calcium carbonate precipitation from ocean bacterial
and its effect on permeability in organic soil. A special injection system was prepared
for inducing bacterial solution to the samples. The bacterial solution supplied to the
samples by gravity for 7 days in specific molds designed for this work. Calcite
precipitation was observed by monitoring pH value and measuring amount of
calcium carbonate. Change in the permeability was measured before and after bio
cementation. Through this research, it is hoped that it can improve engineering
performance especially in reducing permeability aspect of organic or peat soil so this
technique suitable and help reducing the problem in construction of infrastructure in
Siak district

Keywords: permeability, peat soil, calcium carbonate precipitation, bio cementation

JEL Classification : -

@copyright 2019
All rights reserved

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Introduction
Soil Permeability is the ability of soil to pass water. Soils with high permeability can increase
the rate of infiltration, thereby reducing the rate of running water. In soil science, permeability is
defined qualitatively as a reduction in gases, liquids or penetration of plant roots or passing. In
addition, permeability is also a measurement of ground hydraulic conductivity. Soil hydraulic
delivery arises from the existence of interconnected capillary pores with one another.
Quantitatively saturated hydraulic conductivity can be interpreted as the velocity of moving a
liquid on a porous medium in a saturated state. In this case as a liquid is water and as a pore
media is soil).

Peat soil has both physical and technical properties that do not benefit civilian buildings that are
on peat soil due to the formation of peat soils. These physical properties include water content
(Wc) which reaches 900%, the weight of the soil volume is quite small (0.8 - 1.04 gr / cm3),
large pore numbers range from 5-15, and high organic content> 75% (Mochtar, NE, 1999, 2000;
Yulianto, FE. And Mochtar, NE., 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015). The unfavorable physical properties
automatically affect the behavior of the peat soil technique. Peat soil has a very low carrying
capacity of 57 kPa (Jelisic and Lappanen, 2002) and large and uneven compression so that many
civil buildings are damaged by this behavior (Mohtar, NE. Et al. 2014).

Van de Meene (1984) explains that, in the past 18000 years there was a formation of peat soil in
southeast Asia. While Indonesia's peat formed around 5,000 to 8,000 years ago. This peat soil is
formed in areas that have long been submerged in water. Indonesia has 20 million hectares of
peatland which is number four after Canada, Russia and America in the broadest category of
peat land in the world. The distribution of peatlands in Indonesia is in four large islands, namely
Sumatra 35%, Kalimantan 32%, Sulawesi 3% and Papua 30% (Wibowo and Suyatno, 1998). On
the island of Sumatra, peatlands are usually found in the lowlands along the east coast with an
area of 7.2 million hectares. On Sumatra Island, the Province with the widest peatland is Riau
Province with an area of ± 4.04 million Ha or 56.1% of the total peatland area in Sumatra
(Wahyunto et.al., 2003).

Microbiologically induced calcium carbonate (CaCO3) precipitation (MICP) is a

biogeochemical process in which calcium carbonate precipitation is induced within the soil
matrix. MICP has been proposed as an alternative and sustainable cementation technique for
soil improvement. Increases in shear strength, unconfined compressive strength, stiffness and
liquefaction resistance have been reported due to calcium carbonate precipitation resulting from
microbial activity (Kawasaki et al 2018)

Several methods of soil improvement have been applied to peat soil in the form of physical,
mechanical and chemical soil improvements. One method of soil improvement that began to
develop at this time was Bio Grouting. Bio Grouting has been developed as a new soil
improvement technology that works like cement in concrete so that it can bind soil partitions
through the help of biological activities. Bio Grouting can improve mechanical properties
(strength, stiffness, cohesion, friction), reduce the permeability of porous materials, strengthen
or improve cement materials and modify the properties of soil or sand. The Bio Grouting work
system is deposition of Calcite by microbiology induction, microbially induced calcite
precipitation (MICP), which is carried out by bacteria that produce urease enzymes (meng li li et
al, 2015).

This microbially induced calcite precipitation (MICP) / Bio Grouting technique will be applied
to peat so that it can improve the physical and mechanical properties of peat soil.
This technique uses the enzyme urease to separate urea into ammonium and carbonate ions. The
resulting carbonate ion is deposited as calcite crystals in the presence of calcium ions. The urea
hydrolysis reaction and calcite formation are shown in Equations (1) - (3)

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 Urea

CO(NH2)2+2H2O → 2NH4++CO32- (1)

CaCl2→Ca2++2Cl- (2)

Ca2++CO2-→CaCO ↓(precipitated) (3)

3 3

Permeability is an important soil parameter for any project where flow of water through soil is a
matter of concern for example, seepage through or under a dam and drainage from sub grades or
backfills. In all previous studies, the biocementation technique was used in attempt to improve
geotechnical properties of sandy soil. The information in the literature on the application of
biocementation in organic soil is very limited. This study focuses on investigation of
applicability of calcite precipitation, and its effect primarily on permeability properties of
organic soil. Bacillus subtilis a non-pathogenic organisms that is found naturally in soil and
waste, was used throughout the study.

From the description above, the purpose of the study This is:
1. An initial study to find out how much influence from mixing a solution of Bacillus bacteria
Subtilis on stabilized organic soil.
2. To find out the change in value parameters of permeability of organic soils mixed with
Bacillus bacteria Subtilis.

Material and Method

Material
In this study is used a reagent ie CO (NH 2) urea, CaCL2 and Bacillus Subtilis as a grouting
material. The organic soil are from Siak Regency in Riau Province. This soil is classified as OH
soil regarding to Unified Soil Classification System (USCS) and A-7-5 in AASHTO
Classification system seen in Figure1

100

90

80

70
Persen Lolos (%)

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
0.001 0.010 0.100 1.000 10.000 100.000

Particle size (mm)

Ukuran Butiran (mm)

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 Figure 1. Grain Size Distribution of Organic Soil

Method
This research is a first research to make sure the effect of microbially induced calcite
precipitation technique by bacteria bacillus cubtilis in organic soil therefore this research try
with random concentrate amount of the material and making sample with that as MICP trial.
The concentrate that made for the reagent are in the table below

Table 1 Concentrate of the Reagen

No Material Quantity
1 Bacillus Subtilis 5 gr
2 Urea ( CO(NH)2) 10 gr
3 CaCl2 10 gr
4 Water 20 ml

In this research used 10 % of reagent that calculate from the weight of the soil and making the
comparison with no reagent on the sample seen in Figure 2

Figure 2. The Sample of organic soil with the reagent

Result and Discussion

Result
From the UCS test with two sample this research get the result seen in figure 4, figure 5 and
figure 6

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 6.00

5.00 4.97

4.00

Stress, kg/cm2
3.00

2.00

1.00

0.00
0 1 2 3
Strain, %

Figure 4. The Result Of UCS Test With The Sample Without Reagent

3.50

3.00 2.93

2.50

2.00
Stress, kg/cm2

1.50

1.00

0.50

0.00
0 1 2 3
Strain, %

Figure 5 The result of UCS Test with 10 % reagent in the sample

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 compression strength

5
4.5
4
3.5
3 4.97
2.5
2 2.93
1.5
1
0.5
0
without reagent 10 % of reagent

Figure 6 The Comparison result of UCS Test

Discussion
From the UCS test, the sample with 10 % concentrate of reagent had a compression strength q u
= 2.93 kg/cm2 and the sample without the reagent had a compression strength q u = 4.97 kg/cm2.
From this result shown the bio grouting technique or microbially induced calcite precipitation
with the concentrate 10 % from the reagent had less compression strength than without
concentrate. The indication of this result is there are adding some amount of water on the
reagent therefore the sample with reagent has a large amoun of water and effect on the
compression strength. There are also some investigation should be conduct to analysed this
effect ie water effect, pH, and amount of carbonate. Organic soil had many amount of water
content and this effect should be analysed in another research.

Conclusion and Recommendation

Conclusion
From this research there are several conclusion that can be take:
1. With this mix of concentrate that made as a reagent the compression strength is less than
withour=t any treatment
2. In applicability of bio grouting technique in Organic soil should conducted some
investigation to check the effect in engineering and physical properties of organic soil.

Recommendation
There are several recommendation that should be conduct in next research
1. Check the amount of carbonate that made by the reagent
2. Check with SEM tools the effect in the particle bond of organic soil
3. Investigation of the effect of water content, pH and another aspect in successful of bio
grouting Technique or microbially induced calcite precipitation.

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