TITRATIONS OF ORGANIC SOILS WITH STANDARD BASE: SOLUBILITY OF IONIZABLE FUNCTIONAL GROUPS AT 25 °C

Abstract

The conversion of undissolved acidic functional groups into dissolved carboxylate anions has been monitored during potentiometric titration of a Typic Mesisol Peat at 25 °C. The analytical chemical calculations of total acid functional groups and of H+ dissociation equilibrium functions take the dissolution process into account. With 0.05 g of sample suspended in 20 mL of 0.1 N NaCl, the molarity of carboxylate anions in the external solution ranged from 4.3 × 10−4 M at 1 mL g−1 0.1 N NaOH, to 1.5 × 10−3 M at 6 mL g−1 0.1 N NaOH. The corresponding amounts of undissolved carboxyl groups were 5.2 × 10−4 and 1.0 × 10−4 mol g−1. Differential acid constants (KGA) for the undissolved carboxyls were 7.6 × 10−4 (σ 1.4 × 10−4) for αG < 0.02 (0.016 – 0.02) and 1.4 × 10−5 (σ 0.04 × 10−5) for αG > 0.026 (0.026 – 0.60). A substantial increase in productivity was achieved by means of an automatic titrator and a microcomputer with spreadsheet software. Types of data production and processing that were previously labor intensive have now become much more practical. Key words: Organic soils, organic matter solubility, organic soil carboxyls, organic soil ion exchange, organic soil titration, pH dependent solubility