Crude Urease Extract for Biocementation
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 32, Issue 12
Abstract
A crude extract from jack beans (Canavalia gladiata) is demonstrated to be an effective source of urease enzyme for biocementation via enzyme-induced carbonate precipitation (EICP). Test tube tests of crude and purified extracts from jack beans, jack bean meal, soybeans, and watermelon seeds show that the crude jack bean extract results in the highest unit yield, defined as urease content per initial mass of source material, among these four plant sources. The efficacy of EICP using crude jack bean extract for biocementation was compared with the efficacy of three commercially available enzymes by biocementation of a granular soil. Unconfined compression tests on the granular soil specimens subject to biocementation via EICP demonstrated that the crude extract and the less purified commercially available enzyme were actually more effective than commercially available highly purified urease enzymes at enhancing soil strength, an effect attributed to the presence of complementary proteins in the less purified enzyme sources. The simple technique used to produce the crude extract from jack beans significantly lowers the cost of EICP, eliminating a major barrier to practical applications, including infrastructure construction and environmental protection.
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Data Availability Statement
All data generated or used during the study appear in this paper.
Acknowledgments
Work described herein was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center program under Grant No. ERC-1449501. The authors are grateful for this support. Any opinions or positions expressed in this paper are those of the authors only, and do not reflect any opinions or positions of the NSF.
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Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 32 • Issue 12 • December 2020
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 12, 2020
Accepted: Jun 2, 2020
Published online: Sep 22, 2020
Published in print: Dec 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Feb 22, 2021
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