Characterisation and evaluation of humic acids extracted from urban waste as liquid fertilisers

✍ Scribed by Ayuso, Miguel; Moreno, Jose Luis; Hernández, Teresa; García, Carlos

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 264 KB
• Volume: 75
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-5142
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0010(199712)75:4<481::aid-jsfa901>3.0.co;2-k

✦ Synopsis

In this work a comparative study of humic acids extracted from organic wastes (sewage sludge and compost) and those currently used in the humic acid companies (humic acids from leonardite and peat) was carried out. Humic acids were characterised by means of chemical analysis (elemental and functional analysis) and spectroscopic techniques (13C NMR, gel Ðltration and infrared spectra) in order to relate their characteristics with their e †ect on plant growth. Chemical and spectroscopic analysis emphasised the di †erent nature of the studied humic acids. The humic acids derived from the less evolved organic materials (sludge and compost) showed higher aliphatic nature, higher nitrogen compound content, lower oxidation degree and more heterogeneous composition than those extracted from more evolved materials (peat and leonardite). However, all these di †erences did not lead to signiÐcant di †erences in plant growth, but all these humic acids showed an increase of the yield respect to the control.