Basic Studies of Waterbinding in Peat. Report 1983-1986

摘要

The basic idea of the project has been to obtain as complete a description of peat as possible. More than 2000 peat samples have been collected, and among these about 100 have been subjected to extensive analysis. Biology: A microscopy method for botanical peat analysis has been adopted for routine description of the peat samples. Microbiological research has been started and the fungal flora of peatlands has been surveyed. Chemistry: A set of traditional and widely used basic peat analysis has been established. Comprehensive analysis of organic components in peat was started. Fraction procedures have been replaced by a new approach. This has so far been successfully applied to carbohydrate and amino acid analysis. In order to describe the complex peat structure in objective terms, computerized image analysis has been applied. Physical methods: Peat-water relationships have been studied by means of traditional soil science methods. Thermogravimetry has been used of the same purpose as well as for general characterization of peat. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance-, Electron Spin Resonance-, Infrared- and Ultraviolette-spectroscopy have been used, both for characterization of peat in general terms and for studies of waterbinding forces. NIR-spectroscopy in combination with multivariate data analysis has been successfully used to predict a range of chemical, physical and botanical properties of peat samples. Dewatering: Methods for mechanical and thermal dewatering have been established in laboratory-scale. Surface chemistry methods and principles have been used in a comprehensive study of factors that influence the process of mechanical dewatering. System analysis: Multivariate data analysis (principal component analysis and partial least squares) have been applied to extract systematic and relevant information from data measured on peat. (ERA citation 12:007887)