Theoretical and experimental analysis of the dielectric properties of powders

The paper is a detailed treatise on the theoretical and experimental analysis of the dielectric properties of powders. The obtained results clearly indicate that measuring the dielectric properties of powdered minerals is quite an insensitive technique (comparable with the susceptibility measurements of mineral powders as used in paleomagnetics) for which a statistical approach should be used. A combination of the random and systematic errors leads in some cases to a relative error of 10% as a guarantee limit on the estimated permittivity. Some mineral samples could not be measured in the frequency range of the experimental set-up due to relaxation phenomena