Instrumental and Experimental Conditions for the Application of Fourier Transform Infrared Analysis on Soil and Humic Acid Samples, Combined with Chemometrics Tools and Scanning Electron Microscopy

The investigation of the chemical properties of soil organic matter (OM), by the use of some spectroscopic techniques, requires the removal of the mineral impurities of the samples. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of the pretreatment of samples and, also, the influence of instrumental conditions on the qualitative and quantitative results obtained by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy to soil and humic acid (HA) samples. The obtained results showed that: the mass of potassium bromide (KBr) used on the background pellet influenced the characteris...