Frequency and DC electrical Behaviour of polluted sediments in industrial areas: field and laboratory investigations

The aim of this research is to find the class and the quantity of pollutants in soils and rocks on the bases of the different electrical behaviour of organic compounds and metallic ions at the solid-liquid interface, as function of electrical frequency in the DC-.;-.200kHzrange. This research started from previous laboratory studies of the polluted sample electrical responses. The electrical behaviour of these samples has been analysed following the method of Losito et al.(1985) pointed out to investigate the phyllosilicate electrical properties. The method starts from the waveform analysis of the electrical signals, that are strongly distorted by the double-layers of clay minerals. The classical THD% (% Total Harmonie Distortion) and the HD%(co) parameters, used in this analysis, are also strictly dependent of the pollutant molecular size and give an "electrical signature" ofthe pollutant-mineral interaction. On the base of the said laboratory results, a Geoelectrical Integrated Method (GIM) has been performed and tested to investigate and monitor the presence of chemical and organic pollutants near riverbed, water tables, and urban waste deposits.