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Study of water-extractable fractions from South Moravian lignite

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Abstract

Lignite can be applied directly in natural form on agricultural fields as a soil conditioner. However, there is little information on leaching of risky compounds by its interaction with water. South Moravian lignite was therefore extracted with water at 25 °C and 2.3 % of water-soluble fractions were obtained from lignite corresponding to 0.3 % of total organic carbon. All ten fractions form aromatic and aliphatic structures with oxygen-containing functional groups such as carboxyl groups, alcohols, ethers, esters, can be characterized as fulvic-like and humic-like substances. According to the XPS spectra, the fractions contain two nitrogen forms, one of which is ascribed to pyrroles and the second is related to protonated amines or quaternary nitrogen. Analysis at molecular level showed that the fractions contain compounds such as benzene carboxylic acids and their derivatives, small aliphatic diacids, fatty acids and polyols. Most of the identified molecules reflect clearly the presence of microbial remains in the lignite structure since microbial activity during coalification is well known. The differences between the individual fractions are negligible, especially after 21 days of extraction. From environmental point of view, it seems that the identified compounds do not represent a toxic risk.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by project Nr. LO1211, Materials Research Centre at FCH BUT-Sustainability and Development (National Programme for Sustainability I, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Physical and Applied Chemistry, Brno University of Technology, Purkyňova 118, 612 00, Brno, Czech Republic

    Leoš Doskočil, Vojtěch Enev & Miloslav Pekař

  2. Materials Research Centre, Faculty of Chemistry, Brno University of Technology, Purkyňova 118, 612 00, Brno, Czech Republic

    Leoš Doskočil, Vojtěch Enev, Lukáš Kalina & Miloslav Pekař

  3. Université de Poitiers, CNRS, UMR 6514, 40 Avenue du Recteur Pineau, 86022, Poitiers, France

    Laurent Grasset

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  1. Leoš Doskočil
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Correspondence to Leoš Doskočil.

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Doskočil, L., Grasset, L., Enev, V. et al. Study of water-extractable fractions from South Moravian lignite. Environ Earth Sci 73, 3873–3885 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-014-3671-1

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