Fulvic acid carboxyl groups

Leenheer, J. A., Wershaw, R. L. and Reddy, M. M. (1995). Strong-acid, carboxyl groups in fulvic acid from the Suwannee River, Georgia. 1. Minor structures,... 

About half of the dissolved organic carbon may appear in humic or fulvic acids. These are high-molecular weight organic compounds of a composition which is somewhat uncertain. They contain aromatic hydroxyl and carboxyl groups which have the ability to bind to metal ions. Rivers and estuaries typically contain 10 mg/liter of acid with an exchange capacity of 5-10 mmol/g, mainly due to carboxylic... 

Humic and fulvic acids contain various types of phenolic and carboxylic functional (hydrophilic) groups as well as aromatic and aliphatic moieties which import hydro-phobic properties to these substances. Fig. 4.12 gives a schematic idea on the composition of these substances. We refer to the book of Thurman (1985) and Aiken et al. (1985) for a description of the various properties of humic and fulvic acids in soils and waters and the book by Buffle (1988) for the coordinating properties of humus and humic acids. 

In spite of this variation in molecular weights and solubilities humic acid and fulvic acid have a very similar chemical composition. These acids consist of aromatic moieties such as phenols, benzenepolycarboxylic acids, hydroxybenzenepolycarbo-xylic acids, 1,2-dihydroxybenzene carboxylic acids, together with more complex condensed structures and polycylic compounds. It is conjectured that these various units are joined together by aliphatic chains (45, 54) the distribution of functional groups is presented in Table 5. 

The concentrations of HS fractions, i. e., fulvic acids, humic acids, and humin expressed as mol Cl kg of SPH s in terms of various functional groups such as carboxyl, phenolic OH, alcoholic OH, and carbonyl are shown in Fig. 10. 

Fiumic acid binds Fe " " predominantly or exclusively through carboxylate groups, though there may be a very small amount of ligation by phenolate. Some qualitative observations on stabilities and complex formation and dissociation reactivities are available for humic acid and for fulvic... 

First, peak heights are measured at five points in the NMR spectra (Figure 2). All NMR spectra of fulvic acids described in this study were determined as the sodium salt in D20 at pH 8 (21). Peak heights were used rather than peak areas to minimize overlapping spectral contributions from various proton structures. From structural-model considerations, peak 1 appears to be a combination of methylene and methine protons in aliphatic alicyclic rings and branched methyl groups located beta to carbonyl groups of a carboxylic acid, ester, or ketone. The structural model rules out meth-... 

H NMR data from these seven sites are presented by spectral peak-height ratios in Table III. The sites were listed in order of increasing aromatic plus olefinic carbon percentages. Fulvic acids from all the lake samples are much lower in aromatic plus oleflnic carbon content than those from river samples. These results confirm the hypothesis that autothonous inputs result in dissolved humic substances that have a low aromatic plus oleflnic carbon content. The lake samples also are lower in the ratios of peak 2 (carboxylated chains and aliphatic ketones), peak 3 (carbohydrates), and peak 4 (phenolic tannins and lignins) to peak 1 (branched methyl groups and alicyclic ali-phatics) than are the river samples. 

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