The use of Spectroquant Merck BOD photometric test to evaluate the stabilityof organic matters in soil

Abstract

We proposed a new method to determine the rate constant of biochemical oxidation of soil organic matters that makes it possible to evaluate their stability by Spectroquant Merck BOD photometric tests; if smaller samplings are used and individual determinations are performed, it can replace the method of BOD vacuum measuring by an Oxi Top Control Merck system. The time and labour consumption of this vacuum method is sometimes criticised, but it has demonstrable work advantages for a large series of samples and so it is still recommended. The two methods are identical as for the correctness and coincidence of results and they do not differ by either lower or higher results and therefore we recommend the new method with photometric tests for smaller series of samples. For the high time and labour consumption we must warn against the use of traditional BOD dilution method with volumetric determination of oxygen for the determination of rate constants.

Keywords

• soils
• organic matters
• analysis
• lability of organic matters
• photometric method
• comparison of methods