Abstract
Land application of composts affects concentration and composition of dissolved organic matter (OM) which plays important roles in soil functioning and may have effects on spreading of environmental pollution. Linking between the composition of bulk compost OM and its water-soluble fraction may, therefore, allow better understanding and prediction of the environmental impact of compost added to soil. The objectives of this study were to (i) examine composition-based links between bulk compost OM and water-extractable OM (WEOM), and (ii) evaluate and quantify selectivity of bulk compost OM dissolution, based on infrared (IR) absorbing functional groups. For that, 8 different composts and their freeze-dried WEOMs were characterized by mid-IR transmission spectroscopy. Compositions of compost OM and of WEOM were characterized in terms of ratios (R) defined on the basis of both areas and heights of specific IR absorbance bands in relation to absorbance by aliphatic CH groups. A simple novel approach is suggested, whereby selective dissolution of compost OM components is quantified by relating the R values determined for WEOM to those associated with compost OM. Significant similarities of IR spectra found in a series of WEOMs (and, to a lesser extent, in a series of compost OMs) suggest significant contributions of OM carboxylic groups to various bands. IR absorbance of compost OM contributed by hydrophilic and, specifically, carboxyl and carboxylate groups, when related to absorbance by aliphatic CH groups, can be used for predicting the indices characterizing WEOM composition, such as IR absorbance-based R values and aromaticity estimated from specific UV absorbance.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aiken GR, Gilmour CC, Krabbenhoft DP, Orem W (2011) Dissolved organic matter in the Florida Everglades: implications for ecosystem restoration. Crit Rev Environ Sci Technol 41:217–248
Albrecht R, Verrecchia E, Pfeifer H-R (2015) The use of solid-phase fluorescence spectroscopy in the characterisation of organic matter transformations. Talanta 134:453–459
Amir S, Hafidi M, Merlina G, Revel JC (2005) Structural characterization of fulvic acids during composting of sewage sludge. Process Biochem 40:1693–1700
Amir S, Hafidi M, Lemee L, Merlina G, Guiresse M, Pinelli E, Revel J-C, Bailly J-R, Ambles A (2006) Structural characterization of humic acids, extracted from sewage sludge during composting, by thermochemolysis–gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. Process Biochem 41:410–422
Avneri-Katz S, Young RB, McKenna AM, Chen H, Corilo YE, Polubesova T, Borch T, Chefetz B (2016) Adsorptive fractionation of dissolved organic matter (DOM) by mineral soil: Macroscale approach and molecular insight. Org Geochem 103:113–124
Baffi C, Dell’Abate MT, Nassisi A, Silva S, Benedetti A, Genevini PL, Adani F (2007) Determination of biological stability in compost: a comparison of methodologies. Soil Biol Biochem 39:1284–1293
Bernier M-H, Levy GJ, Fine P, Borisover M (2013) Organic matter composition in soils irrigated with treated wastewater: FT-IR spectroscopic analysis of bulk soil samples. Geoderma 20:223–240
Bolan NS, Adriano DC, Kunhikrishnan A, James T, McDowell R, Senesi N (2011) Dissolved organic matter biogeochemistry, dynamics, and environmental significance in soils. Adv Agron 110:1–75
Buchmann C, Schaumann GE (2018) The contribution of various organic matter fractions to soil-water interactions and structural stability of an agriculturally cultivated soil. J Plant Nutr Soil Sc 181:586–599
Cai S, Singh BR (1999) Identification of β-turn and random coil amide III infrared bands for secondary structure estimation of proteins. Biophys Chem 80:7–20
Cai S, Singh BR (2004) A distinct utility of the amide III infrared band for secondary structure estimation of aqueous protein solutions using partial least squares methods. Biochemistry 43:2541–2549
Calderón FJ, Reeves JB III, Collins HP, Paul EA (2011) Chemical differences in soil organic matter fractions determined by diffuse-reflectance mid-infrared spectroscopy. Soil Sci Soc Am J 75:568–579
Caricasole P, Provenzano MR, Hatcher PG, Senesi N (2010) Chemical characteristics of dissolved organic matter during composting of different organic wastes assessed by 13C CPMAS NMR spectroscopy. Bioresource Technol 101:8232–8236
Chefetz B, Hatcher PG, Hadar Y, Chen Y (1996) Chemical and biological characterization of organic matter during composting of municipal solid waste. J Environ Qual. 4:776–785
Chefetz B, Adani F, Canevini P, Tambone F, Hadar Y, Chen Y (1998) Humic-acid transformation during composting of municipal soil waste. J. Environ. Qual. 27:794–800
Chiang PN, Tong OY, Chiou CS, Lin YA, Wang MK, Liu CC (2016) Reclamation of zinc-contaminated soil using a dissolved organic carbon solution prepared using liquid fertilizer from food-waste composting. J Hazard Mater 301:100–105
Dignac M-F, Houot S, Francou C, Derenne S (2005) Pyrolytic study of compost and waste organic matter. Org Geochem 36:1054–1071
El Ouaqoudi FZ, El Fels L, Lemée L, Amblès A, Hafidi M (2015) Evaluation of lignocelullose compost stability and maturity using spectroscopic (FTIR) and thermal (TGA/TDA) analysis. Ecol Eng 75:217–222
Ellerbrock RH, Gerke HH (2004) Characterizing organic matter of soil aggregate coatings and biopores by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Eur J Soil Sci 55:219–228
Goyal S, Dhull SK, Kapoor KK (2005) Chemical and biological changes during composting of different organic wastes and assessment of compost maturity. Bioresource Technol 96:1584–1591
Halikia I, Zoumpoulakis L, Christodoulou E, Prattis D (2001) Kinetic study of the thermal decomposition of calcium carbonate by isothermal methods of analysis. Eur J Miner Proc Environ Protect 1:89–102
Hargreaves JC, Adl MS, Warman PR (2008) A review of the use of composted municipal solid waste in agriculture. Agr Ecosyst Environ 123:1–14
Hay MB, Myneni SCB (2007) Structural environments of carboxyl groups in natural organic molecules from terrestrial systems. Part 1: Infrared spectroscopy. Geochim Cosmochim Ac 71:3518–3532
He Z, Ohno T (2012) Fourier transform infrared and fluorescence spectral features of organic matter in conventional and organic dairy manure. J Environ Qual 41:911–919
He X, Xi BD, Wei Z, Guo X, Li M, An D, Liu H (2011) Spectroscopic characterization of water extractable organic matter during composting of municipal solid waste. Chemosphere 82:541–548
He X, Xi BD, Jiang YH, He LS, Li D, Pan HW, Bai SG (2013) Structural transformation study of water-extractable organic matter during the industrial composting of cattle manure. Microchem J 106:160–166
He X, Yang C, You SH, Zhang H, Xi BD, Yu MD, Liu SL (2019) Redox properties of compost-derived organic matter and their association with polarity and molecular weight. Sci Total Environ 665:920–928
Higashikawa FS, Silva CA, Nunes CA, Sánchez-Monedero MA (2014) Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and partial least square regression for the prediction of substrate maturity indexes. Sci Total Environ 470–471:536–542
Himanen M, Latva-Kala K, Itävaara M, Hänninen K (2004) A method for measuring low-weight carboxylic acids from biosolid compost. J Environ Qual 35:516–521
Hsu JH, Lo SL (1999) Chemical and spectroscopic analysis of organic matter transformations during composting of pig manure. Environ Pollut 104:189–196
Huang M, Zhu Y, Li Z, Huang B, Luo N, Liu C, Zeng G (2016) Compost as a soil amendment to remediate heavy metal-contaminated agricultural soil: mechanisms, efficacy, problems, and strategies. Wat Air Soil Pollut:227–359
Hunt J, Ohno T, He Z, Honeycutt CW, Dail DB (2006) Influence of decomposition on chemical properties of plant- and manure-derived dissolved organic matter and sorption to goethite. J Environ Qual 26:135–143
Inbar Y, Chen Y, Hadar Y (1989) Solid-state carbon 13 nuclear magnetic resonance and infrared spectroscopy of composted organic matter. Soil Sci Soc Am J 53:1695–1701
Leifeld J, Siebert S, Kögel-Knabner I (2002) Changes in the chemical composition of soil organic matter after application of compost. Eur J Soil Sci 53:299–309
Linker R, Shmulevich I, Kenny A, Shaviv A (2005) Soil identification and chemometrics for direct determination of nitrate in soils using FTIR-ATR mid-infrared spectroscopy. Chemosphere 61:652–658
Lv B, Xing M, Yang J, Qi W, Lu Y (2013) Chemical and spectroscopic characterization of water extractable organic matter during vermicomposting of cattle dung. Bioresource Technol 132:320–326
Margenot AJ, Calderon FJ, Goyne KW, Mukome FND, Parikh SJ (2017) IR spectroscopy, soil analysis applications. In: Encyclopedia of Spectroscopy and Spectrometry, vol 2, 3rd edn, pp 448–454
Martínez-Sabater E, Bustamante MA, Marhuenda-Egea FC, El-Khattabi M, Moral R, Lorenzo E, Paredes C, Gálvez L, Jordá J (2009) Study of the evolution of organic matter during composting of winery and distillery residues by classical and chemometric analysis. J Agri Food Chem 57:9613–9623
Martín-Mata J, Lahoz-Ramos C, Bustamante MA, Marhuenda-Egea FC, Moral R, Santos A, Sáez JA, Bernal MP (2016) Thermal and spectroscopic analysis of organic matter degradation and humification during composting of pig slurry in different scenarios. Environ Sci Pollut R 23:17357–17369
McKissock I, Gilkes RJ, van Bronswijk W (2003) The relationship of soil water repellence to aliphatic C and kaolin measured using DRIFT. Austr J Soil Res 41:251–265
Miller A, Wilkins CH (1952) Infrared spectra and characteristic frequencies of inorganic ions. Anal Chem 24:1253–1294
Monda H, Cozzolino V, Vinci G, Spaccini R, Piccolo A (2017) Molecular characteristics of water-extractable organic matter from different composted biomasses and their effects on seed germination and early growth of maize. Sci Total Environ 590-591:40–49
Muller M, Milori DMBP, Deleris S, Steyer J-P, Dudal Y (2011) Solid-phase fluorescence spectroscopy to characterize organic wastes. Waste Manage 31:1916–1923
Müller A, Wanvik JE, Ihlen PM (2012) Petrological and chemical characterisation of high-purity quartz deposits with examples from Norway. In: Gotze J, Mockel R (eds) Quartz: deposits, mineralogy and analytics. Springer-Geology, pp 71–118
Nguyen T, Janik LJ, Raupach M (1991) Diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform (DRIFT) spectroscopy in soil studies. Austr J Soil Res 29:49–67
NIST Chemistry WebBook (2019) Data from NIST Standard Reference Database 69. https://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?Scan=cob4660&Type=IR. Accessed 12 Dec 2019
Polak J, Bartoszek M, Sułkowski WW (2009) Comparison of some spectroscopic and physico-chemical properties of humic acids extracted from sewage sludge and bottom sediments. J Mol Struct 924–926:309–312
Ravisankar R, Chandrasekaran A, Kalaiarsi S, Eswaran P, Rajashekhar C, Vanasundari K, Athavale A (2011) Mineral analysis in beach rocks of Andaman Island, India by spectroscopic techniques. Archives of Applied Science Research 3:77–84
Ros M, Klammer S, Knapp B, Aichberger K, Insam H (2006) Long-term effects of compost amendment of soil on functional and structural diversity and microbial activity. Soil Use Manage 22:209–218
Said-Pullicino D, Kaiser K, Guggenberger G, Gigliotti G (2007) Changes in the chemical composition of water-extractable organic matter during composting: distribution between stable and labile organic matter pools. Chemosphere 66:2166–2176
Senesi N, Miano TM, Provenzano MR, Brunetti G (1991) Characterization, differentiation, and classification of humic substances by fluorescence spectroscopy. Soil Sci 152:259–271
Serra-Wittling C, Barriuso E, Houot S (1996) Impact of composting type on composts organic matter characteristics. In: de Bertoldi M, Sequi P, Lemmes B, Papi T (eds) The Science of Composting. Springer, Dordrecht
Sharma P, Laor Y, Raviv M, Medina S, Saadi I, Krasnovsky A, Vager M, Levy GJ, Bar-Tal A, Borisover M (2017) Compositional characteristics of organic matter and its water-extractable components across a profile of organically managed soil. Geoderma 286:73–82
Silverstein RM, Webster FX (1997) Spectrometric identification of organic compounds, 6th edn. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Canada
Simkovic I, Dlapa P, Doerr SH, Mataix-Solera J, Sasinkova V (2008) Thermal destruction of soil water repellency and associated changes to soil organic matter as observed by FTIR spectroscopy. Catena 74:205–211
Sisouane M, Cascant MM, Tahiri S, Garrigues S, El Krati M, EL Kadiri BG, Cervera ML, de la Guardia M (2017) Prediction of organic carbon and total nitrogen contents in organic wastes and their composts by infrared spectroscopy and partial least square regression. Talanta 167:352–358
Smidt E, Schwanninger M (2005) Characterization of waste materials using FTIR spectroscopy: process monitoring and quality assessment. Spectrosc Lett 38:247–270
Smidt E, Eckhardt K, Lechner P, Schulten H, Leinweber P (2005) Characterization of different decomposition stages of biowaste using FT-IR spectroscopy and pyrolysis-field ionization mass spectrometry. Biodegradation 16:67–79
Smith BC (2011) Fundamentals of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, 2nd edn. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group
Spaccini R, Piccolo A (2007) Molecular characterization of compost at increasing stages of maturity. 2. Thermochemolysis−GC-MS and 13C-CPMAS-NMR Spectroscopy. J Agric Food Chem 55:2303–2311
Stani C, Vaccari L, Mitri E, Birarda G (2020) FTIR investigation of the secondary structure of type I collagen: new insight into the amide III band. Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc 229:118006
Tinti A, Tugnoli V, Bonora S, Francioso O (2015) Recent applications of vibrational mid-Infrared (IR). J Central Eur Agriculture 16:1–22
Van der Wurff AWG, Fuchs JG, Raviv M, Termorshuizen A (2016) Handbook for composting and compost use in organic horticulture. BioGreenhouse COST Action FA 1105 www.biogreenhouse.org
Veeken A, Nierop K, de Wilde V, Hamelers B (2000) Characterisation of NaOH-extracted humic acids during composting of a biowaste. Bioresource Technol 72:33–41
Vieyra FEM, Palazzi VI, de Pinto MIS, Borsarelli CD (2009) Combined UV–Vis absorbance and fluorescence properties of extracted humic substances-like for characterization of composting evolution of domestic solid wastes. Geoderma 151:61–67
Wang K, Li W, Gong XJ, Li Y, Wu C, Ren N (2013) Spectral study of dissolved organic matter in biosolid during the composting process using inorganic bulking agent: UV–vis, GPC, FTIR and EEM. Int Biodeter Biodegr 85:617–623
Wei Z, Zhang X, Wei Y, Wen X, Shi J (2014) Fractions and biodegradability of dissolved organic matter derived from different composts. Bioresource Technol. 161:179–185
Xu B, Poduska KM (2014) Linking crystal structure with temperature-sensitive vibrational modes in calcium carbonate minerals. Phys Chem Chem Phys 16:17634–17639
Yildirim M, Kipcak AS, Senberber FT, Asensio MO, Derun EM, Piskin S (2015) The determination of the potassium nitrate, sodium hydroxide and boric acid molar ratio in the synthesis of potassium borates via hydrothermal method. World Academy of Science. Eng Technol Int J Chem Mol Eng 9:597–600
Zbytniewski R, Buszewski B (2005) Characterization of natural organic matter (NOM) derived from sewage sludge compost. Part 1: chemical and spectroscopic properties. Bioresource Technol 96:471–478
Zmora-Nahum S, Markovitch O, Tarchitzky J, Chen Y (2005) Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) as a parameter of compost maturity. Soil Biol Biochem 37:2109–2116
Zmora-Nahum S, Hadar Y, Chen Y (2007) Physico-chemical properties of commercial composts varying in their source materials and country of origin. Soil Biol Biochem 39:1263–1276
Contributors
The first author collected all of the data and performed the initial statistical analysis. All the co-authors contributed to data analyses, discussions and the preparation of the manuscript. All the co-authors approved the final article.
Funding
The work presented herein was supported by The Chief Scientist—Israeli Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (project number 20-13-0022). The author A.N. received a financial support from The Ministry of Aliyah and Integration of Israel.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
No.
Additional information
Responsible Editor: Philippe Garrigues
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic supplementary material
ESM 1
(DOCX 730 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Nasonova, A., Levy, G.J. & Borisover, M. Bulk and water-extractable organic matter from compost: evaluation of the selective dissolution in water using infrared absorbance ratios. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27, 42644–42655 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10153-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10153-z