Determination of Soil Ionic Concentration using Impedance Spectroscopy∗

This paper presents a novel approach to estimate the soil ionic concentration by way of multi-frequency impedance measurements and using the quasi-static dielectric mixing models to infer the various ionic concentrations. In our approach, the permittivity of the soil dielectric mixture is measured using impedance spectroscopy and the results are used as input parameters to dielectric mixing models, combined with the debye-type dielectric relaxation models. We observe that the dielectric mixing models work well for low RF (radio-frequency) range and help in determining the individual ionic concentration in a multi-component soil mixture. Using the fact that the permittivity of a dielectric mixture is proportional to its impedance, we validated our approach by making multi-frequency impedance measurements of a soil mixture at different concentrations of various components. The method provides a good estimate of individual components such as air, water and ions like nitrates. While the paper is written with the perspective of soil constituent concentration determination, the underlying principle of determining individual component concentration using multi-frequency impedance measurement is applicable more generally in areas such as characterizing biological systems like pathogens, quality control of pharmaceuticals etc.