Infrared and chemometrics study of the interaction between heavy metals and organic matter in soils

The study of the behavior of heavy metals in soils requires the knowledge of the complexation between soil constituents and metals and this information is not available from conventional analytical techniques such as atomic absorption. Since metals do not absorb mid infrared radiation, we wanted to characterize them using their interaction with the organic matter of soils. The use of chemometrics treatment of the spectroscopic data has demonstrated firstly that the interaction between soil constituents and metals takes place preferentially via organic matter, secondly the high difference between the complexation of lead and zinc into organic matter should be noted. The study of the infrared spectra shows that two bands at 1670-1690 and 1710 cm(-1) vary according to the concentration of lead, which seems to be preferentially complexed by the salicylate functionality. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.