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Science

New Device's Radio Waves Reveal Lead Contamination In Soil (phys.org) 32

Posted by BeauHD from the next-level-metal-detector dept.
Cornell Tech researchers have developed a portable device called SoilScanner that uses radio frequency signals and machine learning to detect lead contamination in soil. It offers a cost-effective alternative to traditional methods of testing that "generally involves either sending samples to a lab for analysis, which relies upon harsh chemicals and can be expensive, or using a portable X-ray fluorescence device," notes Phys.org. From the report: "In recent years, especially during COVID, a lot of us got excited about having our own backyard garden, or spending more time at home," said [Rajalakshmi Nandakumar, assistant professor at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech] who's also a member of the Department of Information Science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. "But if you look at instructions for how to grow tomatoes, no one actually tells you that you have to check your soil for lead," she said. "It's all about pH levels. A lot of us, even though we interact very often with soils, are totally unaware of possible lead contamination."

[Yixuan Gao, a doctoral candidate in computer science] said the group was motivated by a map of lead contamination in New York City that Cheng's Urban Soils Lab (USL) had produced over the course of several years of testing for hundreds of soil samples throughout the five boroughs. The testing revealed dangerously high levels of lead in many locations, most notably in northern Brooklyn. About 45% of the soil samples tested by USL had lead levels above 400 parts per million (ppm), the previous EPA recommended screening level (revised a year ago to 200 ppm for residential soils). "This means there is a significant risk when gardening in these urban soils," Gao said. You can learn more about the device here (PDF).

New Device's Radio Waves Reveal Lead Contamination In Soil More | Reply

New Device's Radio Waves Reveal Lead Contamination In Soil

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  • Load is not the only toxic element out there, can this principle be used to detect others? Based on my dated knowledge of physics, I rather assume that it can only work with (some) metals but even that can be useful.

    • Load is not the only toxic element out there

      Load? LEAD.

    • True, but we didn't spend the better part of a century spewing arsenic out of internal combustion engines. As such, lead is everywhere. You could potentially make a case for mercury from coal combustion (and volcanoes), but the major route there is bioaccumulation in animals, particularly fish.

      • And most bullets are copper coated lead. Every time you hear a hunter or target shooter rattle off a shot, somewhere that bullet will sit leeching out.

    • I know where an old orchard was on my property and I am planning to clear the forest, rehab some of the old apple trees, and plant more, but the one thing I need to do first is collect a few dozen soil samples.

      About a hundred years ago lead salts were used as a pesticide and I don't know if they were used here or not.

      I'll download this PDF and see if it's feasible to build an RF scanner. I'd keep it with my normal metal detector. I need to dig a few ag wells too.

      Lab tests are about $20 per sample so that'

      • Can you wait a decade for the beta product to come out? So far they're in early alpha. If you need the answers this side of the mid-2030s, just pay the lab bills.

        You're also likely to get a much more reliable result from a lab using an established assay technique. Until the product announced here is approaching commercial release, you won't have procedures for calibration, levels of accuracy that are useful and things like that.

        Does it matter to you if the results are, say 100 (+/-200) ppm Pb m/m? Because

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bobby ( 109046 )

        I like the plan. Maybe you could gather and map samples, combine them, get the whole glob tested. If lead is too high, maybe do some sub-combining and get a few more tests and narrow down the affected areas?

        It's possible your state's ag. dept. might be able to assist you, help you find cheaper testing places.

        Or- maybe find out what's in home lead test kits and make your own test kits? I know a couple of chemists...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jbengt ( 874751 )
        The information you get from a homebuilt detector might give you some useful information, but you really need to do certified lab tests, anyway, especially if there's any official requirement for them.

  • I wonder if a linear technique like SVD would have been as effective.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kqs ( 1038910 )

      I'm decades past my last exposure to linear algebra, but... You can take radio measurements as the OP describes, add in more sensors, have some coprocessors to transform the results in various ways (like SVD), and feed those into a learning algorithm, and end up with the ability to detect way more than lead, and way more accurately. AI isn't magic, and it takes a lot of work to get it right, but it is so very powerful when used properly.

  • A device that enables citizens to discover significant (as in legally liable) contamination in soil, disrupting every corporations ability to hide their current and past pollution behind expensive lab tests and sponsored results backed by local politicians?

    Expect that tech to become an infamous Matter of National Security..by the end of this sentence.

    • There's already a plethora of inexpensive consumer lead testing kits available that aren't banned (do a web search - there's too many to list). What makes this expensive device any more dangerous?
    • Watch ABCs 1979 news documentary "The Killing Ground" https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      Large amount of toxins are all over the place. Good luck getting companies to clean it up though. The people who did the dumping are long dead, and the companies no longer exist

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kqs ( 1038910 )

        Yup. This is why we have government, to limit further damage and to mitigate and/or fix existing damage. No other entity has the power nor the incentive to do so.

        I mean, government only has the incentive if voters can apply more pressure than the money-rich lobbying of companies. But some hope is better than no hope. And if you find your voting choices aligning with rich corporations, well, it's worth taking a second and third look at who has helped form your opinions. Not that aligning with the selfish

        • A United States Congressional leader stood in front of US Media and proudly declared/bragged that Insider Trading, is a fucking job perk.

          That single moment proved beyond any doubt what the incentives are.

          Power, is both pointless and worthless if corrupt.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by kqs ( 1038910 )

            Power, is both pointless and worthless if corrupt.

            I agree with the sentiment, but disagree with the reality. Corruption is not a binary switch, it is a continuum. Power corrupts, but not everyone is corrupted equally or in the same ways.

            I believe it is impossible to reach the US congress or similar level of government without some corruption. There are too many trade-offs needed to be "pure". But that does not mean that all congress-critters are equally corrupt. Also, "corruption" and "desire to govern well" are two different scales, weakly negatively-

    • Nope, still hasn't happened yet. Are you a slow reader?

  • Thanks to the gun nuts that love to go out and randomly shoot at cans & bottles and whatever else they want to use as a target

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kqs ( 1038910 )

      Lead from bullets is an issue, but a minor one; most dangerous lead comes from other sources. If someone is stabbing you in your kidney, maybe you shouldn't focus on your broken nose first.

    • It's not insuperable. In Britain there has been a 30-odd year campaign to stop anglers discarding lead shot used for getting their line to sink. The consequence has been a steady decrease in the levels of lead in the meat of waterfowl on the "game" market. It's still a problem, but it's less of a problem than it was 30 years ago.

      Good luck getting your argument across to American gun-nuts. Make sure your life insurance covers "death by wingnut gunshot", so you surviving family have somewhere to live after y

  • Most of the risk is interacting with the soil - skin contact, most plants don't pull that lead from the ground into their fruit. Under ground veggies like potatoes and onions are another matter though.

    Also you shouldn't be eating the dirt, FYI.

    • Yeah, but plants (or the parts we eat) often DO come in contact with it, or surrounding areas.

      Some might recall a few months ago warnings about dark chocolate and lead contamination.

      It wasn't because cocoa plants were absorbing lead.

      It was because whatever surface they use to dry cocoa beans was contaminated.

      Perhaps in part from nearby machinery using leaded gasoline?

      There's probably a lot more to consider here.

  • Let people tinker and good things will come of it. Enough with the "return to office" crap when it's unnecessary.
  • While not specifically, this should suffice:
    Wine: https://radioactivity.eu.com/a... [eu.com]
    Air: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/a... [nih.gov]

  • The group's device is simple: Dirt is placed in a one-liter plastic container between the transmitter and receiving antenna. The transmitter sends short bursts of single-tone RF signals at low and high frequencies (700 to 1,000 megahertz and 2.3 to 2.5 gigahertz) through the soil sample.

    Quite uninformative.

    With RF signals, they're poking around at bonding electrons, not the innermost shell of electrons that devices like XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence) - today's technology for field-portable metals analysis. So, n

  • Hemp will clean the soil by absorbing many of the toxins. As long as your not burning the hemp, it's perfectly safe to use for all sorts of crafts.

  • This is nice, but now we need to also test for mercury, cadmium, PFAS, dioxin, and so on...

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