Unlocking the potential of biopolymer soil stabilisation

释放生物聚合物土壤稳定的潜力

• 批准号: EP/X016943/1
• 负责人: Colin Smith
• 金额: $ 25.64万
• 依托单位: University of Sheffield
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FX016943%2F1
• 关键词: Unlocking; potential; biopolymer; soil; stabilisation

The global soil stabilisation market is forecast to grow to $35 billion by 2027 driven primarily by infrastructure and construction activities and exacerbated by the increasingly urgent need to adapt to climate change, flood risk and sea-level rise. Cement and lime are widely used to stabilise soil, but suffer from significant carbon and energy costs. Naturally sourced biopolymers are a promising low carbon 'green' substitute, achieving higher strength in stabilised soils than cement and at similar cost. However, widespread uptake of biopolymers is impeded by the fact that they suffer from (a) poor water resistance and (b) poor resistance to biodegradation over time. To address these limitations, this proposal aims to investigate novel biopolymer treatment processes which have been designed from the molecular level up and which can be applied at the soil/biopolymer mixing stage. These have the scope to provide water and biodegradation resistance using only small volumes of additional natural materials and if successfully demonstrated have the potential to achieve a transformational impact on the soil stabilisation market.

预计到 2027 年，全球土壤稳定市场将增长至 350 亿美元，这主要是由基础设施和建筑活动推动的，而适应气候变化、洪水风险和海平面上升的日益紧迫的需求也加剧了这一市场。水泥和石灰被广泛用于稳定土壤，但会产生巨大的碳和能源成本。天然来源的生物聚合物是一种有前途的低碳“绿色”替代品，在稳定土壤中可以以相似的成本实现比水泥更高的强度。然而，生物聚合物的广泛应用受到以下事实的阻碍：(a) 耐水性较差；(b) 随着时间的推移，生物降解性较差。为了解决这些局限性，本提案旨在研究新型生物聚合物处理工艺，这些工艺是从分子水平向上设计的，并且可以应用于土壤/生物聚合物混合阶段。这些产品仅使用少量的额外天然材料即可提供防水和生物降解性，如果成功证明，有可能对土壤稳定市场产生变革性影响。