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An Evaluation of Job's Method of Continuous Variations as Applied to Soil Organic Matter‐Metal Ion Interactions
Author(s) -
MacCarthy Patrick,
Mark Harry B.
Publication year - 1976
Publication title -
soil science society of america journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.836
H-Index - 168
eISSN - 1435-0661
pISSN - 0361-5995
DOI - 10.2136/sssaj1976.03615995004000020021x
Subject(s) - organic matter , ion , metal , chemistry , soil organic matter , environmental chemistry , soil science , environmental science , soil water , organic chemistry
The literature dealing with the application of Job's method of continuous variations to the study of soil organic matter‐metal ion interactions has been reviewed, and an introduction to the fundamental chemistry necessary for an understanding of these interactions is presented. The method of continuous variations was applied to simple systems consisting of metal ions and mixtures of discrete ligands. The behavior of these “model” systems was compared to that of the more complicated soil organic matter systems. Following a consideration of the fundamental principles of Job's method and of its boundary conditions and limitations, it was concluded that this method is not directly applicable to the study of soil organic matter‐metal ion interactions. This conclusion was substantiated by experiments carried out on the simple “model” systems as well as those on fulvic acid itself. Explanations are proposed to account for the deceptive results which were obtained when this method was erroneously applied by other workers to the investigation of soil organic matter‐metal ion interactions in the past. Possible interferences, due to scattering of light, during the study of soil organic matter‐metal ion reactions by UV‐visible absorption spectroscopy are considered.