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Stabilization/Solidification (S/S) Technique and Its
Applications in Saudi Arabia

Mohammed S. Ba-Naimoon1, and Abdulrahman M. Hamid2*

1Department of Civil Engineering, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt
2Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, King Fahd University of
Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran-31261, Saudi

International Journal of Abstract. The protection of the environment from hazardous pollutants asso-
Environment and ciated with the soils contaminated with oil is a major concern in today’s
Sustainability [IJES] industrialized world, especially the developing nations. Therefore, there is a
ISSN 1927-9566 need to cure the contaminated soils to reduce the potential release of crude oil
Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 46-50 into the environment. The Stabilization/Solidifications (S/S) treatment process
(2016) consists of the addition of cementitious binders to contaminated soils to form a
slurry or liquid waste so that the contaminants from the soil can be prevented
from affecting the environment. In this review, detailed discussion is presented
on the stabilizers that were conventionally used for S/S treatment and tests for
evaluating effectiveness of S/S treatment. In addition, advantages of the S/S
technology is reported. Lastly, the background of soil contamination by oil spill
in Saudi Arabia is addressed in this manuscript.

Keywords. Stabilization/Solidifications, Environment, hazardous pollutants,
cementitious, soil, Saudi Arabia

*Correspondence:

mahwa55@gmail.com

1. Introduction of mixing the contaminated material with
suitable stabilizers. Lime, cement, and other
Stabilization/Solidification (S/S) can be defined cementitious industrial waste materials are
as a clean-up technology that involves mixing commonly used for S/S treatment. Stabilization
soil with contaminated sludge and additives refers to those techniques that reduce the
such as Portland cement, lime/fly ash, and hazard potential by changing the soil conta-
cement/fly ash in order to immobilize the minants so that they become less harmful or
contaminants within the soil from being re- less mobile (U. S. Army Corps of Engineers,
leased into the environment, causing ground- 1995). Solidification refers to techniques that
water pollution (Paria and Yuet ,2006). encapsulate the waste in a monolithic solid of
high structural integrity. Furthermore, solidi-
There are three technologies for in situ treat- fication changes the physical properties of a
ment: (1) Physical/chemical treatment techno- contaminated substance such as compressive
logies, (2) Biological treatment technologies, strength, permeability, and encapsulation of
and (3) Thermal treatment technologies. There hazardous constituents (U. S. Army Corps of
are several soil waste remediation techniques Engineers, 1995).
being used, but stabilization/solidification (S/S)
seems to be more effective because it binds the This paper presents a brief overview of the
compounds of hazardous waste streams into a stabilization/solidification (S/S) technique and
stable insoluble form (stabilization) or entraps its advantages and applications. It also explores
the waste within a solid cementitious matrix the potential use of (S/S) in Saudi Arabia to
(solidification) (Wiles, 1987) . explore the possibility of treatment of spoils.

In the 1950's, S/S technology was originally
developed but has been used recently as treat-
ment. Moreover, S/S treatment mainly consists