Use of ultrasonic treatment for extraction of humic acid with inorganic reagents from soil

The use of ultrasonic vibrations (1 hr) on the extraction of humic acids (HA) from a brown soil has been compared with the extraction by mechanical stirring (24 hr) with two extractants: 0.5 N and 0.1 M Na₄P₂O₇, followed by extraction with 0.5 N NaOH. In the pyrophosphate extraction, ultrasonic and mechanical treatments produced the same yield of HA. Further extraction with NaOH and mechanical stirring gave higher yields.The elemental composition of HA changed remarkably with both ultrasonic and mechanical systems. The HA extracted with ultrasonic treatment showed a higher ash content and a lower content of COOH and phenolic OH groups. These HA's showed higher optical density at 260 and 450 nm when pyrophosphate-extracted, and lower optical density when NaOH-extracted. Moreover the ultrasonic-treated HA in both extractants showed a lower E₄₀₀/E₆₀₀ ratio.Infrared examination confirmed the difference in chemical characteristics of extracted HA. The HA distribution in the different classes of nominal molecular weights by Sephadex gel filtration was influenced by both ultrasonic and mechanical systems, specially for molecular weights between 5000 and 150,000. It has been noted that the differences due to both systems are less marked than those caused by ssing different extractants.