TY - JOUR
T1 - Crude urease extract for biocementation
AU - Khodadadi Tirkolaei, Hamed
AU - Javadi, Neda
AU - Krishnan, Vinay
AU - Hamdan, Nasser
AU - Kavazanjian, Edward
N1 - Funding Information:
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.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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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U2 - 10.1061/(ASCE)MT.1943-5533.0003466
DO - 10.1061/(ASCE)MT.1943-5533.0003466
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85091898338
SN - 0899-1561
VL - 32
JO - Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
JF - Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
IS - 12
M1 - 04020374
ER -