Open AccessA simplified distillation-based sulfur speciation method for sulfidic soil materials
Author(s) -
Krister Dalhem,
Stefan Mattbäck,
Anton Boman,
Peter Österholm
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
bulletin of the geological society of finland
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.4
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1799-4632
pISSN - 0367-5211
DOI - 10.17741/bgsf/93.1.002
Subject(s) - pyrite , sulfur , sulfide , sulfate , environmental chemistry , genetic algorithm , soil water , geology , sulfide minerals , environmental science , mineralogy , chemistry , soil science , ecology , organic chemistry , biology
Speciation of inorganic sulfur species, mainly pyrite and metastable iron sulfides by operationally defined methods, is widely used for risk assessment of acid sulfate soils by quantifying the acidity producing elements, as well as for general characterisation of marine sediments and subaqueous soils. “Traditional” sulfur speciation methods commonly use highly specialised glassware which can be cumbersome for the operator, or, require long reaction times which limit the usability of the method. We present a simplified method which has a sufficiently low limit of detection (0.002%) and quantitation (0.006%) required for the analysis of sulfidic sulfur in acid sulfate soil materials. Commercially available sulfide reagents were used for determining reproducibility and the method was assessed on natural sulfidic soil materials, including fine to coarse grained soil materials as well as sulfide bearing peat, with a large variation of metastable sulfide and pyrite content.