Characterization of the binding sites for Al(III) and Be(II) in a sample of marine fulvic acids

A sample of coastal marine fulvic acids (mfua) was studied and its binding site structures that form stable complexes with metal ions were identified. A previously developed self-modeling methodology, based on the coupling of synchronous fluorescence (SyF) spectroscopy with evolving factor analysis (EFA), was used for the analysis of the interactions between mfua and two metal ions that act as probes for binding sites, namely Be(II) and Al(III). Two types of binding site structures were detected, probably of the salicylic acid and catechol types. The values of the conditional stability constants between mfua and the two metal ions were: for Be(II), at pH = 6, log K = 5.32(8); for Al(III), at pH = 4, log K = 5.1(2). The concentration of the corresponding binding sites was found to be less than one half of those found for soil fulvic acid samples.