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Title:	Broadband electrical response of organic contaminants and contaminant/soil mixtures
Authors:	Curtis, John O.
Keywords:	Dielectric measurements Soil pollution--Measurement
Publisher:	Environmental Laboratory (U.S.)
Series/Report no.:	Technical Report;EL-95-32
Abstract:	Abstract: A laboratory measurement program was conducted to explore the fundamental electrical properties of organic contaminants and contaminant/soil mixtures. Complex reflection and transmission coefficients measured by a vector network analyzer system for samples contained in coaxial sample holders were used to generate electrical properties of the pure substances and the mixtures. The frequencies covered by these experiments ranged from 45 MHz to 26.5 GHz, and sample temperatures were held fixed at 10, 20, 30, and 40 °C. Data were reported in the forms of the complex dielectric constant, conductivity, loss tangent, normalized phase velocity, and power attenuation. Simple volume-weighted mixing models for predicting the real part of the complex dielectric constant (permittivity) were applied successfully to single-frequency data. The rationale behind the development and some of the limitations of mixing models are discussed. The results of this study indicate that permittivity measurements, alone, will not be useful in detecting small concentrations of contaminants in soils. On the other hand, spectroscopic data that cover a frequency range large enough to reveal the dielectric relaxation loss phenomenon that occurs in many organic contaminants may prove to be useful as a detection and/or identification tool.
URI:	http://hdl.handle.net/11681/22542
Appears in Collections:	Technical Report