Liquid limit of marine soft clay encountering desalination percolation process

•Pore-water salinity leaching accompanies colloid erosion encountering desalination percolation process.•Porewater salinity effect on LL during desalination process implies colloidal erosion.•Clay’s LL decreases in desalination process where colloid erosion plays dominant effect. The diffuse double layer (DDL) theory indicated that the liquid limit (LL) of clays decreases based on pore-water salinity during salinization tests conducted in a laboratory. However, LL also decreased based on pore-water salinity when authors conducted geological investigations in the regression depositional zone in Lianyungang city, contradicting the DDL theory. This contradictory finding is inferred due to the coupled effect of salinity leaching and erosion of the colloid during a desalination percolation process. To confirm this hypothesis, 3 model tests of distilled water percolation and seven accelerated percolation tests were designed in this study, and the soil/water characteristics after desalination percolation were determined. The results reveal that the pore-water salinity leaches are combined with the colloidal erosion during the desalination percolation process, leading to the gradual decrease in LL based on the reduction of salinity and suggesting that the dominant effect is the colloidal erosion. At the initial stage of the desalination process, the colloids easily erode from the clay matrix due to the weakened salinity inhibition on the colloid release, leading to the seepage channel expansion, and hence the increase in colloid dimension and concentration in leachates throughout percolation. Based on the further decrease in pore-water salinity, the colloids in the clay matrix continuously release and inversely clog the inner channels of the soils, decreasing the colloid dimension and concentration in leachates. When the percolation process is sufficiently long, all salinity would be leached out from the clay matrix, and only the erosion of the colloid would be identified.