A comparison of methods for the determination of cations in soils: CH3COO-NH4 and Mehlich 3

Identifier:  TFG:1206

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TFG1206

Authors:  Sarmiento García, Francisco José

Abstract:
Trabajo de Fin de Grado (Química) Fco. José Sarmiento García The determination of exchangeable cations found in soil samples gives us valuable information about the fertility of the ground to help us improve the quality of our crops. The purpose of this paper is to search and select a different extracting methodology to put it to a test against the current ammonium acetate method. Nine different soil samples were studied in this comparison and the results told us the methods are fairly similar in 3 out of 4 cations. We explain the reason behind this problem and try to circumvent it by thinking and applying variations to the currently tested method and see how they fare against it. Even with it showing promise, more work has to be done to find a solution to this problem.