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COMPLEX CONDUCTIVITY RESPONSE TO NANOMATERIALS IN A SAND MATRIX
Citation:
Joyce, R., D. D. WERKEMA, E. Atekwana, AND E. Atekwana. COMPLEX CONDUCTIVITY RESPONSE TO NANOMATERIALS IN A SAND MATRIX. Presented at American Geophysical Union Fall Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, December 15, 2008.
Impact/Purpose:
Presentation
Description:
Nano-scale metallic particles are being used with increasing frequency in a variety of industrial, medical, and environmental remediation applcations. The fate and transport of such materials in the subsurface is not fully understood, neither is the impact of these materials on human health. Materials at this small nano-scale sometimes have unusual physical properties which differ from larger sized particles of the same material. Feasibility experiments were performed to investigate the geoelectrical properties of nanomaterials in the environment. Five nanomaterials were selected for laboratory column experiments within a sand matrix. These nanomaterials included: Zero-Valent Iron, Cerium Dioxide, Titanium Dioxide, Zinc Oxide, and Silver. These materials were mixed at different concentrations (.025-2.5 weight %) into a medium grained silica sand matrix and saturated with simulated groundwater then packed into PVC columns. Complex conductivity measurements (0.1-12 kHz) were performed on these various columns. Preliminary results suggest that there is a minimal geoelectrical response associated with all of the materials except for silver as a function of increasing concentration of particles. These results are counter to our expected results which predicted that we should see a noticeable response from the materials due to their increased surface area. Further experiments are being planned to further evaluate how well geoelectrical techniques are suited for detecting these materials in geologic media under various geochemical environments.