Geotextile
AssigneeEcole Polytechnique Federale De Lausanne (Epfl)
InventorsDimitrios Terzis, Lyesse Laloui
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Abstract
The present invention concerns a geosynthetic element for a geotechnical engineering application. The geosynthetic element comprises: bacteria carriers for carrying bacteria arranged to be propagated from the geosynthetic element to a surrounding geomaterial; and a flow network comprising openings on its surface to allow a reactant to escape the flow network to the surrounding geomaterial along the flow network to produce solid calcium carbonate when in contact with the bacteria. The reactant flow network further comprises a set of inlets for feeding the reactant into the flow network, and a set of outlets for recovering at least a part of the reactant from the reactant flow network.
Claims15
A geosynthetic element for a geotechnical engineering application for forming solid calcium carbonate in a soil material, the geosynthetic element comprising:
- bacteria carriers comprising calcifying bacteria, the calcifying bacteria being arranged to propagate from the bacteria carriers to a surrounding soil material;
- and
- a flow network comprising openings on the surface of the flow network to allow a reactant to propagate from the flow network to the surrounding soil material along the flow network to produce solid calcium carbonate, the flow network further comprising a set of inlets for feeding the reactant into the flow network, and a set of outlets for feeding out at least a portion of the reactant from the flow network.
A method of inducing microbiologically induced calcium carbonate precipitation in a geomaterial by using a geosynthetic element for carrying bacteria and a reactant in a flow network comprising openings on the surface of the flow network to allow the reactant to escape the flow network to the surrounding geomaterial along the flow network, the flow network further comprising a set of inlets for feeding the reactant into the flow network, and a set of outlets for feeding out at least a portion of the reactant from the flow network, the method comprising:
- introducing the bacteria to the geosynthetic element in predetermined locations such that the bacteria are arranged to propagate from the geosynthetic element to the surrounding geomaterial;
- placing the geosynthetic element to an installation location of the geosynthetic element to come in contact with the geomaterial;
- and
- feeding the reactant into the flow network through the set of inlets to allow the reactant to be circulated in the flow network and to allow at least a portion of the reactant and the bacteria to be propagated from the geosynthetic element to the geomaterial to produce solid calcium carbonate in the geomaterial.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.