Detecting heavy metal contamination in soil using complex permittivity and artificial neural networks

摘要

The use of the complex permittivity, an intrinsic electrical property of materials, to detect the presence and type of heavy metals in soil is investigated. The soil specimens are prepared by mixing the soil with distilled and deionized water, NaCl solutions, and copper and zinc salt solutions and compacting at known water contents. The complex permittivities of the soil specimens are measured in the laboratory using a custom-developed apparatus. A database, which includes both contaminated and uncontaminated soil specimens, is developed, with the soil water content, density, and pore-fluid salinity varying over a relatively wide range. Two artificial neural network (ANN) models are developed to (i) identify whether the heavy metals are present in the soil; and, if so, (ii) distinguish the metal type, based on the complex permittivities measured on the soil specimens. The first ANN model (identification) can correctly identify the presence of heavy metals in 90% of cases. The second ANN model (classification) can correctly classify the type of the heavy metal in 95% of cases. Better performance can be achieved if more complex permittivity data are available for the training of the networks.