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A comparison of four methods of analysing aqueous soil extracts for sulphate
Author(s) -
Mc M. Adams Trevor,
Lane Peter W.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
journal of the science of food and agriculture
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 142
eISSN - 1097-0010
pISSN - 0022-5142
DOI - 10.1002/jsfa.2740350708
Subject(s) - barium , barium sulphate , precipitation , chemistry , aqueous solution , soil water , sulfur , barium sulfate , spectrophotometry , hydrogen sulphide , environmental chemistry , mineralogy , inorganic chemistry , chromatography , environmental science , soil science , radiochemistry , physics , organic chemistry , meteorology
Four methods of measuring sulphate content were tested on aqueous KH 2 PO 4 extracts from 24 soils, representing a wide range of soil types within Northern Ireland. The methods compared were (i) reduction to hydrogen sulphide (Johnson–Nishita); (ii) loss of barium from solution following barium sulphate precipitation; (iii) turbidimetric measurement of suspended barium sulphate; and (iv) measurement of residual 2‐aminoperimidine by spectrophotometry following precipitation of 2‐aminoperimidine sulphate. The barium loss method was about as precise and accurate as the hydrogen sulphide method, but did not measure the organic sulphur compounds extracted and so tended to give lower values than the hydrogen sulphide method. However, both these methods seemed to be satisfactory. The other two methods were much less precise and, on average, the turbidimetric method overestimated the amount of sulphate.