Characterization of biogenic organic matter (BOM)

Abstract

Biogenic organic matter (BOM) is of ubiquitous relevance in all aquatic systems. This is due to the fundamental function of the natural organic matter in combination with the microbial activity which guarantees the degradation in and the self purification of water in the hydrological cycle. In addition, the refractory part of the widely distributed BOM acts as effective adsorbent for most water constituents, and in case of mobile fractions as active vehicle for pollutants. In contrast to the broad importance of the occurrence and role of BOM, there is a fairly small variety for its analytical characterization. Especially in the field of in-situ measurements and of the determination in the original concentration range of aqueous samples, relatively little data have been collected. This is partly due to the complex structure of BOM, partly to the limited availability of analytical methods suited for that type of investigations. The aim of the paper is to give typical examples for the a) physical/chemical, b) microbiological and c) technologically orientated methods of the analytical characterization of BOM in aqueous solution and to draw conclusions on the function of BOM in aquatic systems and their use for man.

Drinking Water: Factors Affecting the Quality of Drinking Water

“…In paper [157] gel-chromatography methods are used in combination with the changes in the intensity of the ultraviolet region of absorption and sensitive method of determining DOC to study the changes, which take place in the DOC structure as a result of ozonation and chlorination. Concurrently with the chemical analysis the researchers determined also the degree of biological degradability of oxidizing products by monitoring the changes in the AOC content in water in compliance with the methods described in [158,159]. In paper [159] used a sample of fulvic acid, which contained five main fractions: a humus fraction with hydrophilic macromolecules of acid compounds; structural units representing precursors or products of destruction of the humus fraction; the low-molecular organic acid fraction, which is represented by oxalyl acid, rumaric acid, etc.…”

Speciation in Freshwaters

“…(1) pedogenic NOM is due to rainwater leaching of soil NOM, which in turn results from the decomposition of higher plants by bacteria and fungi; (2) aquagenic NOM is that formed in the water column itself, essentially by excretion by and decomposition of plankton and aquatic bacteria (Frimmel et al, 1998); (3) sedimentary NOM results from accumulation and transformation in sediments of organisms' debris and aquatic NOM (predominantly aquagenic).…”

“…Classifications based on physical and chemical fractionation procedures are purely operational, but sometimes useful for studying PROM and AROM in the absence of a more theoretically sound discrimination basis (Frimmel et al, 1998). There are many recent publications on isolation of aquatic humic substances under 'non-perturbing' conditions; utilising XAD resins (Hejzlar et al, 1994;Mykkelbost et al, 1995;Afcharian et al, 1997;Martin-Mousset et al, 1997;Peuravuori and Pihlaja, 1997a, b, c;1998;Standley and Kaplan, 1998), DEAE cellulose (Pettersson et al, 1994) or reverse osmosis (Sun et al, 1995;Crum et al, 1996).…”

“…Some progress is beginning to be made on characterising the temporal and spatial variability in the structure and function of aquatic organic matter in situ (Zumstein and Buffle, 1989;Fukushima et al, 1996a, b;Thomas, 1997;Frimmel et al, 1998). A combined approach, using the overlapping tools of non-perturbing analysis, isolation-fractionation and analytically constrained calculations, may prove useful for NOM characterisation (Krasner et al, 1996).…”

Online TOC Analysis Based on Reagent-free Oxidation of Dissolved Organic Matter Using a Mercury Lamp-Pass-Through Photoreactor

“…12,19 To minimize that interference, the chromatographic separation of the coexisting substances was applied before decomposition. 17,[20][21][22][23] In this paper, we propose a reagent-free and rapid decomposition method for DOM in river water using a VUV mercury lamp-pass-through (LPT) photoreactor. Its most distinguishing feature is its narrow synthetic quartz reaction tube, which passes directly through a low-pressure mercury lamp.…”