Biomineralization for Reducing and Controlling Sand-Dust Storms.

ABSTRACT

The sand-dust weather and sand-dust storms have become a serious environmental disaster worldwide. It is an important challenge to develop technologies for desert sand solidification in order to prevent and control sand-dust weather. The biomineralization technology for solidifying desert sands has been a novel method for reinforced soils in recent years. The biomineralization solidification sand field tests are completed at the Wuma Highway solidification section in the Tengger Desert. The superiority of the biomineralization for solidifying sands is verified by measuring the water storage capacity of different reinforcement zones including bare sand zone, plant zone, biomineralization solidifying sand zone, and biomineralization combined plant solidifying sand zone. Simultaneously, the molecular dynamics calculation analysis is used to verify the role of biomineralization solidifying sands in preventing sand-dust storms. All results demonstrate that the biomineralization solidification sand method is effective for controlling and preventing sandstorm disasters.