3-DIMENSIONAL MODELS FOR HUMIC ACIDS AND SOIL ORGANIC MATTER

Humic substances and soil organic matter are one essential basis for life on earth, and the study of their structures is the aim of a fast-growing, interdisciplinary, scientific community, in particular in the environmental sciences. Modern methods of instrumental analytical chemistry such as analytical pyrolysis combined in an integrated approach with the wide range of standard chemical and biological techniques, have led to proposing a model structure for humic acids. Simultaneously, powerful software programs for computational chemistry and molecular modeling have become available and prompted our present work to develop model structures for humic- and organomineral complexes as well as soil particles. The principal aims are to simulate, understand, and predict the trapping and binding of biological and anthropogenic substances in soils, and to follow geochemical processes at the nanochemistry level.