Humin humic acid, relation

Bourbonniere and Meyers (unpublished) hydrolyzed humic substances from Lake Huron sediments with 5N NaOH at 170°C for 12 hours under a nitrogen atmosphere and found the following organic acids -Ci6 and n-Cig monocarboxylic acids lactic acid, 2-hydroxybutanoic acid, 3,4-dihydroxy-butanoic acid, oxalic acid, and succinic acid. It was proposed that the smaller organic acids were derived from cellulose-related materials. 2-Hy-droxybenzoic acid, 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, 2,5-dihydroxy-3-pentenoic acid, and vanillic acid were also observed. It was believed that 4-hydroxybenzoic acid and vanillic acid originated from lignin and that the ratio of 3,4-dihy-droxybutanoic acid to vanillic acid indicates the proportion of cellulose to lignin. The proportion was in the order of fulvic acid > humic acid > humin. 

Although some soil scientists have long considered it to be a humic acid-clay complex, those scientists dealing with humic substances in peats con-Hder humin to be a macromolecular condensate of humic acids (Flaig, 1972 Spackman et al., 1974 Casagrande et al., 1980). Evidence for this relation-... 

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