Soil Improvement with Organo-Silane

This manuscript provides insight into a new approach to chemically-based soil improvement with organosilanes (OS). In particular, OS creates a hydrophobic surface on virtually any silica-based material through covalent bonding. In contrast to ion exchange techniques, grafting OS on soils results in near permanent modification. As an illustration, laboratory testing was conducted to evaluate the influence of OS modification on the compaction, strength, swell, erosive and hydraulic properties of several soils. OS modification resulted in modest changes to strength and swell potential and a dramatic reduction in infiltration capacity. Likewise, use of OS on a 2H:1V slope reduced the mass of eroded soil by a factor of nearly 50. Overall, these results suggest that OS modification may have wide application in geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering.