Publication Details

Category Text Publication
Reference Category Journals
DOI 10.1038/srep42877
Title (Primary) Soil wettability can be explained by the chemical composition of particle interfaces - An XPS study
Author Woche, S.K.; Goebel, M.-O.; Mikutta, R.; Schurig, C.; Kaestner, M.; Guggenberger, G.; Bachmann, J.
Source Titel Scientific Reports
Year 2017
Department UBT
Volume 7
Page From art. 42877
Language englisch
UFZ wide themes RU3;
Abstract Soil wettability (quantified in terms of contact angle, CA) is crucial for physical, chemical, and biological soil functioning. As the CA is determined by components present within the outmost nanometer of particles, this study applied X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) with a maximum analysis depth of 10 nm to test the relationship between CA and surface elemental composition, using soil samples from a chronosequence where CA increased from 0° (0 yrs) to about 98° (120 yrs). Concurrently, as seen by XPS, C and N content increased and the content of O and the mineral-derived cations (Si, Al, K, Na, Ca, Mg, Fe) decreased. The C content was positively correlated with CA and least squares fitting indicated increasing amounts of non-polar C species with soil age. The contents of O and the mineral-derived cations were negatively correlated with CA, suggesting an increasing organic coating of the minerals that progressively masked the underlying mineral phase. The atomic O/C ratio was found to show a close negative relationship with CA, which applied as well to further sample sets of different texture and origin. This suggests the surface O/C ratio to be a general parameter linking surface wettability and surface elemental composition.
Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=18277
Woche, S.K., Goebel, M.-O., Mikutta, R., Schurig, C., Kaestner, M., Guggenberger, G., Bachmann, J. (2017):
Soil wettability can be explained by the chemical composition of particle interfaces - An XPS study
Sci. Rep. 7 , art. 42877 10.1038/srep42877