Crystal Growth of MICP through Microfluidic Chip Tests
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 148, Issue 5
Abstract
A significant pressing issue in microbially induced calcium carbonate precipitation (MICP) is the characterization of the heterogeneous growth mechanics of calcium carbonate () crystals. This study aimed to visualize the bacteria and distributions at the quiescent state through microfluidic chip tests where the bacterial solution (BS) and cementation solution (CS) were initially injected simultaneously from two separate microchannels and subsequently converged in a reaction microchannel. The experiments revealed that the bacterial diffusion within the CS injection area was hindered for a high concentration of calcium chloride () (e.g., 0.5 M), whereas diffusion appeared homogeneous for a low concentration of (0.05 M). In addition, the distribution along the width of the reaction microchannel was more uniform for than for . The microfluidic chip tests in this study provided kinetic observations of the MICP process that improved the understanding of the mechanics of bacterial diffusion and crystal growth and their variation with different concentrations of .
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
The authors would also like to acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51922024 and 52078085) and the Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing, China (Grant No. cstc2019jcyjjqX0014). TME was supported by the US National Science Foundation (Grant No. CMMI-1933355) during this work. In addition, Leon A. van Paassen was supported by the Engineering Research Center Program of the US National Science Foundation under NSF (Grant No. ERC-1449501) during this study. Their support is gratefully acknowledged.
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Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 148 • Issue 5 • May 2022
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© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Aug 29, 2020
Accepted: Nov 22, 2021
Published online: Feb 16, 2022
Published in print: May 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Jul 16, 2022
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