Complex Dielectric Constant of Soil Contaminated by Landfill Leachate with Measured Frequency

To evaluate the applicability of dielectric constant measurement method on the geoenvironmental investigation of subsurface contaminated by landfill leachate, the analysis on dielectric characteristics of sand containing contaminated pore water by landfill leachate was performed. The separate real and imaginary parts of dielectric constant were investigated in the frequency range of 75kHz to 12MHz. The real part of dielectric constant increased at the lower frequency wherea the real part of dielectric constant decreased at the higher frequency as the concentration of leachate increased. These results can be explained by the frequency dependence of space charge polarization and orientation polarization. The imaginary part of dielectric constant on the contaminated sand with leachate increased with their concentration for whole frequency range. These results are caused by the increase of energy loss due to the enhancement of conduction in soil with leachate concentration. The results in this study indicate that the dielectric constant measurement method has potential in evaluating the contaminated soil and pore water by landfill leachate.