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Trace element complexation by humic substances: issues related to quality assurance

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Abstract

Despite the amount of data available and the effort that has been put into studying the binding of trace elements by humic substances, there is still a significant amount of uncertainty surrounding the validity and applicability of the existing values in solving particular problems in the environmental, toxicity and industrial fields. This paper discusses the problems associated with the characterisation of humic binding and proposes a general approach for quality assessing trace element-humic substances complexation data, which includes the normalisation of raw experimental data prior to any data treatment (modelling).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute F.-A. Forel, University of Geneva, 10 route de Suisse, 1290, Versoix, Switzerland

    Montserrat Filella

  2. SCHEMA, 92 rue Principale, 6990, Rameldange, Luxembourg

    Montserrat Filella

  3. Laboratory for Waste Management, Paul Scherrer Institute, 5232, Villigen, Switzerland

    Wolfgang Hummel

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  1. Montserrat Filella
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  2. Wolfgang Hummel
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Correspondence to Montserrat Filella.

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This article is part of the Topical Issue “Quality Assurance of Thermodynamic Data”.

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Filella, M., Hummel, W. Trace element complexation by humic substances: issues related to quality assurance. Accred Qual Assur 16, 215–223 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00769-010-0716-3

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