Natural dissolved organic matter (NDOM) is the most abundant pool of carbon within aquatic environments and is perhaps the most complex and poorly understood portion of the global carbon cycle. In this study, samples of NDOM collected from several aquatic environments were treated with various amounts of sodium borohydride (NaBH<sub>4</sub>), purified via solid phase extraction, and characterized using attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) and ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy. We show that the effects of the borohydride reduction are detectable by both techniques. These results demonstrate that ATR-FTIR can be used as facile method to quantify the overall abundance of ketones and aldehydes within NDOM.

Analysis of reducible species within natural dissolved organic matter using attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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