NMR spectroscopy study of freshwater humic material in light of supramolecular assembly.

The structural similarity-dissimilarity of several humic-type derivatives, separated from a strongly colored freshwater sample by different sorbing solid techniques, tangential-flow ultrafiltration (UF), and large-scale preparative high-performance size-exclusion chromatography (HPSEC), were in detail studied with one-dimensional liquid 1H and solid-state 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, especially in light of the native humic-type dissolved organic matter (DOM-HM). The results support the applicability of functional cross-linked poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) or diethylaminoethyl-cellulose (DEAE) sorbents in concentrating representative integrated wholes of aquatic humic-type material along with a conventional nonionic XAD-8/DAX-8 (polymethyl methacrylates) technique. Apart from the fact that the acidification of the original humic water before a separation procedure seems not to be so destructive to the original structural composition of the DOM-HM as expected, the refinement of aquatic humic solutes, independent of the selected sorbing solid technique, will cause structural changes in the separated humic complexes in comparison with the situation predominating in the original starting material. Tangential-flow ultrafiltration (UF) proved an overpowering reliability to concentrate the aquatic DOM-HM. Most fundamental is the combined outcome of different HPSEC experiments and determined structural functionalities which indicate that almost all original DOM-HM solutes are aggregated mixtures consisting of structurally similar associations possessing various molecular size ranges, which can be separated from their integrated whole as nearly homogeneous and uniform species. This finding permits a reasonable starting point to go on working with more advanced multidimensional NMR techniques in resolving the uncertainty about supramolecular assembly of dissolved humic material. The tested conformity between the obtained molecular NMR descriptors and the corresponding previously collected FT-IR parameters was acceptable thus speaking for the fact that the less sensitive FT-IR spectroscopy can also provide valuable information on the structural and functional properties of heterogeneous humic-type mixtures.