Comparative Study of Suwannee River Natural Organic Matter and Humic Like Substances Synthesized from Acid Polymerization of 4-Oxo-2-Butenoic Acid by Online Thermochemolysis Techniques

摘要

Humic substances (HS) are refractory structurally complex compounds believed to be formed by degradation of biogenic materials with myriad environmental roles, e.g. bioremediation of pollutants, precursors of disinfection by-products, etc. Although studied for an inordinately long time, HS complete structural elucidation remains elusive and hitherto they are unsatisfactorily operationally-defined based on their aqueous solubility at different pH. Nonetheless, a significant understanding of the predominant chemical features of HS has been obtained by pyrolysis gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), among other techniques. Pyrolysis is however, limited since many of the pyrolysates, e.g. carboxylic acids, phenols etc. are polar and not amenable to GC/MS. Furthermore, aromatic carboxylic acids undergo decarboxylation at elevated temperatures typical in pyrolysis thus not undetected.