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Making Artificial Beachrock Through Bio-cementation: A Novel Technology to Inhibition of Coastal Erosion

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Handbook of Environmental Materials Management

Abstract

Coastal erosion is a significant problem throughout the world. In order to prevent or minimize damage from erosion, combinations of various structures have been used traditionally. The maintenance and management for repairing and rebuilding the coast are expensive. As a hint for an alternative material in order to reduce life-cycle costs, it is focused on the beachrock. A beachrock is composed of coastal sediments that have been cemented mainly by CaCO3 within the intertidal zone, and its formation period is much shorter than that of other sedimentary rocks. The cement component of beachrocks mainly consists of either calcium carbonate or silica. Compared to the concrete structure, coral sand solidification would be considered to minimize cost. A variety of factors in the formation of beachrock has been considered. Among them are the possibility of solidification promotion by microbial action, the urea decomposition action of microorganisms, and the microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) method; as principles, carbon dioxide generates as well as precipitates CaCO3 by microbial metabolism. Bio-cementation technology is used to make artificial beachrock. Bio-cementation is a sand solidification technology, in which ureolytic bacteria release carbonate from urea hydrolysis in the presence of an excess of calcium ions to form calcite (CaCO3). Bio-cementation is to enhance the strength and stiffness properties of soil and rocks through microbial activity or products. Bacterial CaCO3 precipitation under appropriate conditions is a general phenomenon where the ureolytic bacteria uses urea as an energy source and produces ammonia which increases the pH in the environment and generates carbonate, causing Ca2+ and CO3 2− to be precipitated as CaCO3. This CaCO3 joins sand particles and forms rocklike materials that auto-repairs by means of sunlight, seawater, and bacteria as microbially induced carbonate precipitation method. These rock particles produced artificially are called artificial rock, and this artificial rock has the potentiality to protect coastlines from erosion.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh

    Md Nakibul Hasan Khan

  2. Faculty of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

    Satoru Kawasaki

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  1. Md Nakibul Hasan Khan
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  2. Satoru Kawasaki
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Chemistry and EVSC, New Jersey InstTech, 151 D Tiernan-NJIT Dept. of Chemistry and EVSC, Newark, New Jersey, USA

    Chaudhery Mustansar Hussain

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, USA

    Chaudhery Mustansar Hussain Ph. D

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Khan, M.N.H., Kawasaki, S. (2018). Making Artificial Beachrock Through Bio-cementation: A Novel Technology to Inhibition of Coastal Erosion. In: Hussain, C. (eds) Handbook of Environmental Materials Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58538-3_38-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58538-3_38-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-58538-3

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