Complexities associated with dissolved organic matter (DOM) isolation from seawater have hampered compositional characterization of this key component of global carbon and nutrient cycles. Two techniques, Electrodialysis (ED) and Solid Phase Extraction (SPE), were combined to more effectively isolate DOM from salt-containing waters. Sample recovery was optimized and evaluated on a range of samples including coastal ocean seawater, open ocean seawater, artificial seawater from cultures of marine phytoplankton, and artificial seawater samples containing standard compounds of different molecular sizes and charge. ED was performed with a system optimized for processing 2 to 10 L sample volumes and SPE was performed using Bond Elut PPL exchange resin. With the combination of ED and PPL techniques an average recovery of 76.7 ± 2.6% was obtained for natural coastal seawater. Comparison of C/N ratios and fluorescence excitation emission matrices (EEMs) taken at the beginning and end of the recovery process indicated that the final recovered material was representative of the DOM present in the original samples.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:GATECH/oai:smartech.gatech.edu:1853/54463 |
| Date | 07 January 2016 |
| Creators | Chambers, Luke Russell |
| Contributors | Ingall, Ellery |
| Publisher | Georgia Institute of Technology |
| Source Sets | Georgia Tech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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