Dynamic monitoring of dielectric properties during two phase immiscible displacements in sand packs using frequency domain electromagnetic sweeps

Electromagnetic heating is a promising soil remediation method especially in thin formations. The lack of a wide-spread adoption of this method stems from insufficient knowledge of how the complex dielectric properties, that govern propagation of the electromagnetic waves through porous media, change with changing frequency, water saturation, displacement types and flow regimes. To breach these gaps several sets of spontaneous deionized (DI) water imbibition experiments, followed by the primary drainage floods, that were followed by the secondary DI water imbibition floods in confined uniform sand packs were performed. The frequency domain relative dielectric constant and conductivities were extracted from the two-port complex S-parameter measurements taken with the vector network analyzer during these immiscible displacements at various water saturation levels at ambient conditions. A novel coaxial transmission line core holder was designed and commissioned, and a modified version of a plane-invariant dielectric extraction algorithm was developed for this purpose. Series, parallel and semi-disperse mixing models were applied to fit the water saturation dependent relative dielectric constant and conductivity values sampled at 500 MHz from the extracted frequency domain spectra. The Maxwell-Garnett parallel model was proved to be the most flexible because it could capture the sampled conductivity values in all secondary imbibition floods before and after the breakthroughs, where the inflection points were observed. These inflection points were attributed to silica production and a potential shear-stripping flow. This observation was further confirmed by conducting a single-phase Darcy's law analysis of two DI water imbibition floods.

Integrated use of chemical and geophysical monitoring to study the diesel oil biodegradation in microcosms with different operative conditions

This study aimed to monitor the aerobic bioremediation of diesel oil-contaminated soil by measuring: a) the CO₂ production; 2) the fluorescein production; 3) the residual diesel oil concentration. Moreover, the complex dielectric permittivity was monitored through an open-ended coaxial cable. Several microcosms were prepared, changing the water content (u% = 8-15% by weight), the carbon to nitrogen ratio (C/N = 20-450), and the soil amount (200 and 800 g of dry soil). The cumulative CO₂ and fluorescein production showed similar trends, but different values since these two parameters reflect different features of the biological process occurring within each microcosm. The diesel oil removal efficiency depended on the microcosm characteristics. After 84 days, in the microcosms with 200 g of dry soil, the highest removal efficiency was achieved with a water content of 8% by weight and C/N = 120, while in the microcosms with 800 g of dry soil the best result was achieved with the water content equal to 12% by weight and C/N = 100. In the tested soil, the bioremediation process is efficient if the water content is in the range 8-12% by weight, and C/N is in the range 100-180; under these operative conditions, the diesel oil removal efficiency was about 65-70% after 84 days. The dielectric permittivity was monitored in microcosms with 200 g of dry soil. The open-ended coaxial cable detected significant variations of both the real and the imaginary component of the dielectric permittivity during the bioremediation process, due to the physical and chemical changes that occurred within the microcosms.

Complex dielectric permittivity of metal and polymer modified montmorillonite

Owing to its high surface area and high surface charge density, clay, either contaminated with heavy metal ions or modified with organic additives as barrier materials, is difficult to assess and monitor. Complex dielectric permittivity (κ*) showed promising potential in tackling the above issues. In this study, the complex dielectric permittivity (κ*) of clays modified with a surfactant, four polymers, and four metal ions was measured at frequencies from 0.2-20 GHz. With the addition of polymer and metal ions, increasing frequency caused a slight decrement in real permittivity but a significant decrement in effective permittivity. A modified linearity polynomial equation, which considered the particle conductivity, was developed to fit the relationship between effective conductivity (σeff) and porosity ranging from 0.7 to 1.0. A three-dimensional Cole-Cole plot (κ'-κeff″-w) shows Cole-Cole circle expansion at higher water content. The resonance strength of modified clays was observed to increase with water content, which suggests that the number of water molecules in the diffuse layer of polymer or metal ions saturated clay increased. However, sorbed polymer and metal ions have an insignificant influence on the resonance time τ_s and stretching exponent 1-α. κ* can provide nondestructive characterization of metal or polymer modified clays.

Analyzing Single Giant Unilamellar Vesicles With a Slotline-Based RF Nanometer Sensor

Novel techniques that enable reagent free detection and analysis of single cells are of great interest for the development of biological and medical sciences as well as point-of-care health service technologies. Highly sensitive and broadband radio-frequency (RF) sensors are promising candidates for such a technique. In this work, we present a highly sensitive and tunable RF sensor, which is based on interference processes and built with a 100 nm slotline structure. The highly concentrated RF fields, up to ~1.76×107 V/m, enable strong interactions between Giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) and fields for high sensitivity operations. We also provide two modeling approaches to extract cell dielectric properties from measured scattering parameters. GUVs of different molecular compositions are synthesized and analyzed with the RF sensor at ~2 GHz, ~2.5 GHz, and ~2.8 GHz with an initial |S21 | min of ~-100 dB. Corresponding GUV dielectric properties are obtained. A one-dimensional scanning of single GUV is also demonstrated.

A Quadrature-Based Tunable Radio-Frequency Sensor for the Detection and Analysis of Aqueous Solutions

A highly tunable and sensitive radio-frequency (RF) sensor is presented for the measurement of aqueous-solution dielectric properties. Two quadrature hybrids are utilized to achieve destructive interference that eliminates the probing signals at both measurement ports. As a result, weak signals of material-under-test (MUT) are elevated for high sensitivity detections at different frequencies. The sensor is demonstrated through measuring 2-propanol-water solution permittivity at 0.01 mole fraction concentration level from ~4 GHz to ~12 GHz. De-ionized water and methanol-water solution are used to calibrate the sensor for quantitative MUT analysis through our proposed model. Micro-meter coplanar waveguides (CPW) are fabricated as RF sensing electrodes. A polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic channel is employed to introduce 250 nL liquid, of which ~1 nL is effectively the MUT. The permittivity and the relaxation time of 2-propanol-water solution are obtained. Compared with our power divider based sensors, the differential reflection coefficients in this work provide additional information that complements the transmission coefficient methods.

Temperature-dependent microwave dielectric relaxation studies of hydrogen bonded polar binary mixtures of propan-1-ol and propionaldehyde

The molecular interaction between the polar systems of propan-1-ol and propionaldehyde for various mole fractions at different temperatures were studied by determining the frequency dependent complex dielectric permittivity by using the open-ended coaxial probe technique method in the microwave frequency range from 20 MHz to 20 GHz. The geometries are optimized at HF, B3LYP and MP2 with 6-311G and 6-311G+ basis sets. Dipole moments of the binary mixtures are calculated from the dielectric data using Higasi's method and compared with the theoretical results. Conformational analysis of the formation of hydrogen bond between the propan-1-ol and propionaldehyde is supported by the FT-IR and molecular polarizability calculations. The average relaxation times are calculated from their respective Cole-Cole plots. The activation entropy, activation enthalpy and Kirkwood correlation 'g' factor, excess permittivity (ε(E)), excess inverse relaxation time (1/τ)(E), Bruggeman parameter (f(B)) have also been determined for propan-1-ol and propionaldehyde and the results were correlated.