Determination of P-Fertilizer-Soil Reactions

Calcium and magnesium are in the same group of the periodic table, and the properties of their phosphates should not strongly diverge. Although there has been much research on calcium phosphates in the context of agriculture, there 

The application of Raman microspectroscopy and synchrotron infrared microspectroscopy to visualize the P-fertilizer-soil reactions on a microscale [90] has the advantage that they have a lateral resolution down to the diffraction limit, allowing for the detection and characterization of small phosphate particles. 

For the investigations, sUghtly alkaUne soil (30 g) was mixed with 5 g of fertilizer and 10 g of water and stored in plastic boxes at 20 C for 4- 56 days. After different reaction times, parts of the samples were dried in a fume cupboard at 20 °C and analyzed by Raman and IR microspectroscopic studies, however, in what follows only the IR imaging data will be discussed in detail. For clarification of the P-fertilizer-soil reactions of SSA-based P-fertilizer, mixtures of reference phosphates with soil were also analyzed under the same experimental procedure. 

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