MICCS · Methodology for fast and reliable Investigation and Characterization of Contaminated Sites

There is an increasing understanding that our natural resources should be kept unspoiled, which makes polluted soil and groundwater not acceptable. Therefore, a lot of resources are used for investigating contaminated sites, limiting the damage from pollution and cleaning polluted soil and groundwater. The site investigations are very costly and time consuming. They are normally based on traditional methods where vertical drillings through the soil matrix are used for soil and groundwater sampling and testing for pollution and characterising the geology. A recent development is the use of probes driven down into the soil. The probes can be used for taking out samples of soil, water or air, or direct physical /geotechnical investigation. The sampling method is faster than drilling and can be combined with analytical equipment on the surface, hereby doing online measurements for volatile compounds. The overall aim of the MICCS project is to develop a more advanced in-situ investigation method for identifying and characterising pollution. This will be achieved by integrating more sophisticated sensors (e.g. micro-chips, electrochemical sensors, spectrometry, and optical sensors) into a solid probe intended to drive down through the soil matrix to perform continuous or semi-continuous measurements. The sensor measurements are combined with improved soil radar solutions (GPR) for better positioning and soil structure specification. The combined data are processed in a chemometric system, being able to draw a more precise picture of the contaminated site as a whole. Together, the sensor measurements provide improved and more precise data input through the chemometric analysis as basis for better decision making. Furthermore, the investigation method will be easier and quicker to use, and hence also less costly than current SOA investigation methods.