Dielectric Monitoring for understanding Herbicide Bioremediation in Microcosm experiment

Abstract

Abstract Geophysical tools have emerged as a potential solution to monitor bioremediation of petroleum contaminated soil. Monitoring of herbicide bioremediation so far is lacking. In the present study, we formulated a geophysical approach for monitoring herbicides bioremediation in agriculture soil. Complex dielectric permittivity and conductivity was used to monitored in four microcosm setups i.e., control, herbicide contaminated soil, bioaugmentation and biostimulation. Real and imaginary dielectric permittivity showed different patterns of temporal changes for four microcosms. In the bioagumentated microcosm, the degradation was more prominent and real dielectric permittivity increased twice and achieved peak. Achieved two peaks signify two distinct phenomenon of herbicide degradation and can be further explained through conductivity spectrum and microbial count approach. The major interesting phenomenon observed during the study was shift in peak frequency of imaginary conductivity due to increased biomass during herbicide degradation process. Complex Dielectric permittivity indicated the ability to monitor bioremediation herbicide contaminated soil when it was coupled with complex conductivity method. We expect the insights of the study will be relevant to promote multidisciplinary approach of using geophysical tools for monitoring microbial signatures. The results provide insights how this non-invasive geophysical toll can revolutionize the process of understanding the decontamination process.