POSSIBILITY FOR SOLIDIFICATION OF PEATY SOIL BY USING MICROBES

Abstract

Peaty soil is widely distributed in Hokkaido. Untreated, it is too soft for use as a civil
engineering material. Soil solidification improvement technologies that harness the metabolism of microbes
in soil have recently been gaining attention. Such research and development has proceeded within and
beyond Japan. The researchers investigated a technology for peat solidification that harnesses the ability of
microbes inhabiting the soil of construction sites to precipitate calcium carbonate, and consideration was
given to solidifying peaty soil by harnessing the ability of those microbes. Focusing on the urease activity of
microbes, which has an influence on solidification of peaty soil, a soil solidification test, in which the
metabolism of microbes was utilized, and an experiment, in which the degree of solidification of peaty soil
was tested, were done by using peaty soil samples from Hokkaido. The two experiments found the following.
1) Microbes that have urease activity inhabit the peaty soil of Hokkaido. 2) It is possible to solidify peaty soil
by enhancing the urease activity of these microbes. 3) It is possible to evaluate the degree of urease activity
in peaty soil by measuring its electric conductivity.