Soils are often used as heat exchangers in applications such as nuclear waste containment, buried utilities, and shallow and deep geothermal energy. Our research so far focuses on investigating the effect of biological activity on soil thermal conductivity.

• Biocemented sands: An increase in cementation in sands from Microbial Induced Calcite Precipitation (MICP) increases the contact area between particles, which provides increasing solid mass for heat to flow through. Our research has shown that the thermal conductivity of sands can be significantly increased using this methodology that is a promising alternative to cement-based soil improvement (paper in progress).