In yang et al.

(2020) , They present a new method to enrich Urease producing bacteria

from waste activated sludge (WAS) under a non-sterile condition so the cultivation of
bacteria can be carried out in large-scale for field applications. Using this method, the cost of
bacteria cultivation can be reduced by up to 30%. The UPB culture enriched using this
method is highly urease active and capable of hydrolyzing urea for calcium carbonate
precipitation. After treating sand columns using biocement made of this type of UPB via
equal molar cementation solution of 2 M, the unconfined compressive strength of the sand
increased to 2.7 MPa and the permeability reduced to a level of 10-6 m/s. These results are
comparable with those obtained for biotreatment using pure UPB. Thus, the UPB cultivating
method introduced in this paper has the potential to reduce the cost of soil improvement
without compromising the performance.
Portland cement has been the most commonly used material for construction and soil
improvement. About 5-7% of total global anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission comes from
the production of Portland cement (Benhelal et al., 2013). In recent years, biochar (and
biocement have emerged to be alternatives to cement for soil improvement. Not only will the
soil quality be improved, but the biochar can also be used for farming purpose as fertilizer .
Compared to biochar, numerous studies have shown that biocement based on a microbially
induced calcite precipitation (MICP) process can be better used as a substitute of cement to
enhance the mechanical properties of soil such as improve its shear strength and reduce its
permeability. As biocement can be produced at ambient temperature, it is more cost-effective
to produce. Furthermore, biocement has very low viscosity and the size of bacterial cells is
much smaller than that of cement, the construction process using biocement grout can

be simpler than that using cement grout