The impacts of nano-SiO2 and silica fume on cement kiln dust treated soil as a sustainable cement-free stabilizer

•In this study, different types of green cement-free soil stabilizers are proposed.•CKD outperforms cement based on enhancing kaolinite clay soil strength properties.•Silica fume and nano-silica are considered stabilization’s activators.•Replacing cement with CKD significantly reduces environmental pollutions.•Nano-silica should not be applied more than 1% in clayey soil stabilization. This investigation aims to assess the nano-silica and silica fume effectiveness on engineering clay soils’ characteristics stabilized with cement kiln dust. Laboratory tests, including Atterberg limits, standard Proctor compaction, unconfined compressive strength, and California bearing ratio, were performed. The manufactured specimens were tested 7 and 28 days after preparation to analyze the curing time impacts on soil’s strength characteristics. Meanwhile, changes in the chemical and microstructures of soil were observed using scanning electron microscope examination and X-ray diffraction analysis. Subsequently, the mixtures were compared based on eight environmental parameters. To this end, a new environmental index was developed to consider all environmental criteria simultaneously. Afterward, three criteria, including 28-day unconfined compressive strength, environmental index, and unit price, were taken into account as sustainability criteria. Moreover, the gray relational analysis was employed to examine the mixtures’ sustainability. The results demonstrated that the amount of 1% nano-silica and 15% silica fume by dry soil weight was an optimum addition content of employed activators for enhancing the CKD-treated soil’s geotechnical properties, respectively. Furthermore, the sustainability evaluation revealed that CKD-treated soil was the most sustainable mixture. Given the sustainability effects, nano-silica addition less than 2% and silica fume to the CKD-stabilized soil can lead to propose treated soil with considerably more sustainability than cement. It is essential to highlight that the sustainability of CKD-treated soils containing silica fume was considerably more than that of stabilized soils comprising nano-silica.