International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics

Volume 118 No. 24 2018

ISSN: 1314-3395 (on-line version)
url: http://www.acadpubl.eu/hub/
Special Issue
http://www.acadpubl.eu/hub/

SOIL STABILIZATION USING

BIO-ENZYME
Sanjeet Sahoo, G. Sridevi
Department of Civil Engineering,
C V Raman College of Engineering
Bhubaneswar, India
B V Raju Institute of Technology
Narasapur, Hyderabad, India
[email protected]
[email protected]
(Corresponding Author)

May 1, 2018

Abstract
Chemicals stabilization is the most common and proven
technique of stabilization which uses chemicals. Non tra-
ditional stabilizers are becoming more popular because of
their numerous advantages like it is a natural substance,
non toxic , non inflammable, non Corrosive liquid enzyme
formulation fermented from vegetable extracts that improve
the engineering properties of the soil. In the present study,
an attempt is made to study the properties of soil stabi-
lized with the Terrazyme , in order to use this technology
for Geotechnical applications. Laboratory investigations are
carried out blending Terrazyme with soil in different dosages
and the effect is studies. A series of Standard Proctor tests,
Soaked and Unsoaked California Bearing Ratio (CBR) test,
and Unconfined Compressive Strength tests were conducted
on locally available clayey soil as well as clayey soil mixed
with different proportions of Terrazyme inorder to study

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the improvement of strength properties of Terrazyme sta-

bilized soil.The specimen are compacted to their respective
MDD at optimum moisture content.Results show that the
terrazyme can successfully be used to stabilize the soil. Sig-
nificant improvement was found in both Soaked CBR and
Unconfined Compressive Strength.
Key Words:Terrazyme, Soaked CBR, Unconfined Com-
pressive strength, Curing time, stabilization.

1 Introduction
Soil stabilization is crucial for construction jobs such as road con-
struction. In broader terms it indicates the altering the soils physi-
cal, geotechnical properties like gradation, permeability, swelling,
shear strength etc to meet the design requirements of the pro-
posed structure. Traditionally, there are various methodologies
for soil stabilization like mechanical, chemical methods. There is
continuous research for cost effective alternate materials and novel
ecofriendly techniques to process the local materials. Acrylic poly-
mers for soils stabilization that penetrate the surface and bind soil
particles together strongly is one of the emerging techniques of
soil stabilization. Unlike chemical methods, scientifically advanced
polymers are environment friendly as well as cost effective, which is
natural, non-toxic, non in flammable, non-corrosive liquid enzyme
can be used.
Some of these new stabilizing techniques create hydrophobic sur-
faces and mass that prevent water penetration or heavy frosts by
inhibiting the ingress of water into the treated layer. Selecting the
stabilizer type depends on number of factors including gradation,
plasticity index, availability and cost of the stabilizer and appropri-
ate construction equipment and its long term effect on strength etc.
A balance between performance, economy and environmental har-
mony keeping in mind the limited natural and artificial resources
is vital in maximizing efficiency of performance of structures.
Before deciding the type of stabilization, it becomes imperative
to evaluating the various soil properties, identifying the deficient
property of soil and choosing the effective and economical method
of soil stabilization. Bio-enzymes are enzyme formulation fermented
from vegetable extracts that improves the engineering properties of

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International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics Special Issue

the soil
Reference [1] conducted a comprehensive study of the Terrazyme
soil stabilizer product and its effectiveness on sub-base and sub-
grade soils and found that in the case of cohesive soils there was
no much improvement on the properties during the early days but
the soil showed improved performance with time. Reference [2]
conducted field studies on Terrazyme treated road. The terrazyme
treated showed a very good condition and no surface damage was
observed even after two monsoon seasons in spite of heavy rainfall.
Reference [3] conducted field experiments to study the use of Ter-
razyme as the bio-enzyme stabilizer for road construction. Different
soils like sandy clay, silty clay, sandy silt, plastic and non-plastic
clay, sandy loam, loam mixed with clay were selected as pavement
materials and field stretches were periodically tested with Dynamic
Cone Penetrometer and concluded that the enzyme stabilization is
a good technique for the effective and economic solution for pave-
ment construction.
Reference [4] conducted laboratory scale testing program to
evaluate the effectiveness of enzyme treatment on sub grade soil.
The effectiveness of enzyme treatment was evaluated on the ba-
sis of CBR, strength, soil stiffness and soil modulus. Reference [5]
conducted a comprehensive study of the Terrazyme and its effec-
tiveness on lateritic soil and clay type soil collected from Kerala.
Terrazyme is useful for clay soil and sand but is less significant to
silty soils and clayey and sandy soil had increase in CBR by 700
percent.
Reference [6] conducted a study to assess the suitability of bio-
enzyme as soil stabilizer on five types of soils with low clay content
to very high clay
Laboratory tests were conducted to determine the engineering
properties of soil and strength characteristics of soil with and with-
out stabilization with bio-enzyme. The Bio-Enzyme stabilization
has shown little to very high improvement in physical properties of
soil. This little improvement may be due to chemical constituent
of the soil, which has low reactivity with Bio-Enzyme. In the cases
of highly clay moderate soil, like silty soil to sandy soil, the ef-
fect of stabilization has improved the CBR and unconfined com-
pression strength. Reference [7] concluded that the Bio-Enzymes
require some clay content in order to create the reaction that will

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strengthen the soil. The successful stabilization could be achieved

with as little as 2 percent clay but best result with 10 to 15 percent
clay. It was reported that 7 days, 14 days, 21 days and 98 days
CBR was found as 37, 62, 66 and 100 respectively as compared
to 28 % of untreated soil. Reference [8] found that the optimum
dosage of Terrazyme for improvement of UCS of Black Cotton soil
is 1ml/per 5kg of soil. Reference [9] concluded that application of
enzyme Terrazyme on soil showed significant changes in all the test
characteristics. Addition of Dosage 2 (200 ml/m3 of TZ), yielded
the maximum improvement, enhancing the UCS up to 12 times the
untreated strength. Reference [10] conducted tests on lateritic soil
with a higher dosage of 200 ml/ 2 m3 of soil, the CBR value of
lateritic soil increased by 300% after four weeks of curing, perme-
ability decreased by 42 percent. Studies on clayey soil,silty clay and
sandy soil revealed that the addition of bio-enzyme increases the
UCS of the soil. The silty clay Exhibited higher CBR value and
UCS value when compared with clay and sandy soil [11]. In the
light of above, an attempt is made to study the effect of terrazyme
enzyme on the soaked CBR and Unconfined Compressive Strength
for different curing periods.

2 MATERIAL USED
A. Soil
The soil sample is collected from Kausalya Ganga, Dhauli, Odisha.
The soil sample is a finely-grained natural soil material and the
properties are given in Table 1
Table 1 Geotechnical Properties of the native Soil

B. Terrazyme
Terrazyme is a natural Bio-Enzymatic Soil Stabilizer non-toxic,
noncorrosive and inflammable liquid, produced by formulating veg-
etable extracts. The properties are given in Table 2.

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Table 2 Properties of Terrazyme

3 OBJECTIVES
To study the behavior of soil with the addition of terrazyme enzyme
in different dosages. To study the improvement in soaked CBR and
Unconfined Compressive strength with the addition of terrazyme
enzyme.

4 METHODOLOGY
The total study is carried out in two stages. In the first stage the soil
characterization is done. In the second stage, Terrazyme is added to
the soil in two dosages, 0.05% and 0.1% and studies are conducted.
Tests are conducted with soil alone as well as soil stabilized with
terrazyme containing different dosages. The soil is oven dried and
pulverized then mixed with the desired amount of terrazyme. Wa-
ter is added to the mixture and mixed until it becomes homogenous.
The laboratory tests carried out on the natural soil include parti-
cle size distribution as per IS: 1498-1970, Specific Gravity as per
IS: 2720 Part III section 1-1980, Atterbergs limits test as per IS:
2720-part V 1985, Compaction test as per IS: 2720 part VII-1980,
Unconfined compressive strength test as per IS:2720-part X. CBR
tests as per IS: 2720 part XVI. Unconfined compression tests are
conducted on soil and terrazyme mixes compacted at their respec-
tive maximum dry density (MDD) and optimum moisture content
(OMC) [12]-[18].

5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A. Unconfined Compression Strength Tests

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International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics Special Issue

Unconfined compressive strength of black cotton soil was evalu-

atedby stabilization with two different dosages of TerraZyme 0.05%
and 0.1% and cured in desiccators up to 7 days of curing. Fig.
2 presents the unconfined compressive strength for treated black
cotton soil with terrazyme and the effect of curing on the UCS
value. The unconfined compressive strength of TerraZyme treated
black cotton soil has shown tremendous improvement. With in-
crease in curing periods, UCS has increased and also with increase
in dosage amount.The unconfined compressive strength of native
soil is 120kN/m2 and with the addition of 0.05% by weight of ter-
razyme, the UCS increase to 122.5kN/m2 with 7 days of curing, the
UCS increases to 151kN/m2. With the addition of 0.1% by weight
of terrazyme, the UCS was observed to be 133.5kN/m2 and upon
curing for 7 days, the UCS was found to be 173kN/m2. With the ad-
dition of 0.05% of terrazyme, there is an improvement of 25.8% and
with 0.1%, the improvement was 44.2%. The stress strain curves
of terrazyme stabilized soils indicate that, the soils treated with
terrazyme shows a ductile behaviour when compared with the un-
treated soil which ensures the treated soils undergo large deforma-
tion before failure. The plasticityindexis another important param-
eter that affects Unconfined compressive strength. The terrazyme
treated soils showed higher the plasticity Index when compared
with the untreated soils. For a curing period of 7 days, however,
the stiffness of the stress-strain curvefor the untreated specimen
is initially lower, whereas the strength of the treated specimen is
greater than that of the untreated specimens. Thus, the treated soil
exhibits an increase in stiffness, ductility, or strength in the first 7
days of curing. This may be due to enzyme proteins adsorbed by
the clay particles, thus, modify the clay particle [19]. This kind
of large improvement demonstrates the effectiveness of enzymatic
treatment of clay soils.

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Fig.1 Stress Strain curves with different dosages and curing

periods
B. CBR tests
The two different dosages of Terrazyme were added and Soaked
California Bearing Ratio test was done. The CBR values obtained
are shown graphically in Fig. 2. From the figure, it is evident that
the soaked CBR increases with the increase in Terrazyme dose. En-
zyme primarily attaches to the claymolecule, alters clay molecule,
and later attaches itself from the modified clay by shifting to its
original form after the completion of the reaction [20]. When an
enzyme-substrate complex is formed, the enzymes convert the local
conditions in the reaction site entirely different to those outside the
reaction site [21]. This way, the changes in pH and temperature
do not hinder the clay modification. The improvement in soaked
CBR is occurring because of modification of clay molecule. The
CBR values for unsoaked sample with native soil was found to be
3.79% at 2.5mm and when soaked for 4 days the values were 2.286%
at 2.5mm. With the addition of Terrazyme by 0.05%, the soaked
CBR value increased to 5.3% at 2.5mm penetration and it further
increased with the increase in dosage by 0.1%. With 0.1% Ter-
razyme, the soaked CBR value was found to be 6.6% Thus there
is an increase of about 50% in the value of CBR with addition of
Terrazyme. The soaked CBR increased by 3 times when compared
with the untreated soil.

Fig. 2 Penetration curves of stabilized and unstabilized soil

6 CONCLUSIONS
The test results of three different samples i.e. the soil without the
Terrazyme stabiliser and the soil with two different dosages of Ter-
razyme stabilizer were compared to the influence of stabilizer on

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the soil and the to choose the appropriate dosage of the stabilizer
depending on the application. It is found that the Terrazyme sta-
bilizer can effectively be used to stabilize the soil.
The Unconfined Compressive Strength for native soil was found
to be 120 KN/m2 which increased to 122.5 KN/m2 with addition
of Terrazyme in dosage 0.05ml/kg. With the same dosage and 7
days curing the UCS was found to be 151 KN/m2.Again when the
dosage was increased to 0.1ml/kg, the UCS was found to be 135.5
KN/m2 and increased to 173 KN/m2 with the same dosage after 7
days curing.
The CBR values for unsoaked sample with native soil was found
to be 3.79% at 2.5mm and when soaked for 4 days the values were
2.286% at 2.5mm. With the addition of Terrazyme by 0.05%, the
soaked CBR value increased to 5.3% at 2.5mm penetration and it
further increased with the increase in dosage by 0.1%. With 0.1%
Terrazyme, the soaked CBR value was found to be 6.6%. Thus there
is an increase of about 50% in the value of CBR with addition of
Terrazyme. The soaked CBR increased by 3 times when compared
with the untreated soil.
Thus it can be concluded that Terrazme is a satisfactory sta-
bilizing agent for clayey soils. The utilization of the enzyme like
Terrazyme is an alternative to reduce construction cost of the roads
particularly in low volume roads.

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