Engineering Properties and Environmental Effects of Phosphogypsum Modified Expansive Soil

Abstract

Phosphogypsum (PG), an industrial solid waste produced from the wet phosphoric acid process, has seriously damaged the ecological environment. Its comprehensive utilization rate needs to be improved urgently. In this paper, the chemical enhancement effect of solid waste PG on expansive soil, known as engineering cancer, was investigated through systematic macroscopic and microscopic experiments. The positive and negative environmental impacts of the PG modifier were also comprehensively analyzed. Laboratory soil test results show that PG mixed with expansive soil can change the consistency limit of expansive soil, effectively increase the soil strength by 2–3 times and reduce the expansion of expansive soil to 62%. Therefore, it can be considered to be applied to the improvement of expansive soil roadbed. However, when the dosage is too high, it may be affected by the dissolution of PG, and the improvement effect is relatively decreased. The optimal dosage of PG is 15%. XRD, XRF, SEM and MIP microcosmic tests show that the mineral composition, element content and porosity of the expansive soil have changed after the addition of PG. Its microstructure is much tighter. Through TCLP test, the environmental effects of heavy metals caused by resource utilization of PG modified expansive soil were evaluated. In this study, only Cr element exceeded 2.6% slightly when the content of PG was 25%. The analysis found that the engineering properties of expansive soil were effectively improved, resulting in the effective solidification of heavy metals in PG.