Phase separation methodology for physicochemical studies of soils

Abstract

A detailed study of a soil in every country is of a paramount importance, because it determines an entire economic strategy. The mineralogical properties of soils have been studied in the world for more than 100 years by various characterization techniques, X-ray diffraction being the most prominent. The main difficulty in most of employed techniques is the dominance of the majority phases in the response or the measured signal from the sample that becloud minority phases preventing their identification. The application of methods of phases' separation would provide the possibility to discern minority phases in soils. This work presents a phase separation method that employs a combination of two phenomena based on principles of fluid dynamics: flotation and sedimentation. Different characterization methods were used to analyse the produced soil samples. The methodology employed for separation of phases allowed the complete separation of clay phase from heavier mineral phases. This result makes it possible to discern minority mineral phases of soils that are difficult to detect. A more accurate determination of the mineralogical composition of a soil becomes feasible.