Chemical Characterization of Riverine Dissolved Organic Matter Using a Combination of Spectroscopic and Pyrolytic Methods

It is now well established that riverine dissolved organic matter (DOM) play a major role in environmental processes. However natural organic matter exhibit different properties depending on their sources and the fractions considered. As a result chemical characterization of DOM has appeared essential for a better understanding of their reactivity. The purpose of this work was to characterize all of the DOM at molecular level, including the non-hydrolysable fraction, which is a major part of this OM. To this aim a new analytical approach had to be considered. A combination of spectroscopic and pyrolytic methods has been applied to various fractions of DOM originating from different catchments (French and Amazonian rivers). The fractions were termed hydrophilic, transphilic and colloids according to the IHSS fractionation procedure, and account for at least 70% of the total dissolved organic carbon. Solid state 13C NMR and FTIR afford information on the nature and relative abundance of the chemical functions occurring in macromolecules. Differential thermogravimetric analysis allows to determine the thermal behaviour of the studied material and hence to optimize analytical pyrolysis conditions. Curie point pyrolysis combined to gas chromatography and mass spectrometry leads to identification of characteristic pyrolysis products, some of them being specific of a macromolecular source. Additional information can be provided by thermochemolysis with tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH). TMAH was shown to allow an increase in the efficiency of the cracking of macromolecular structures and an enhancement of the detection of the polar pyrolysis products especially due to methylation of the alcohol, phenol and acid groups. The results obtained have established the importance of terrestrial contribution to DOM. Hydrophobic fractions mainly originate from lignin-derived units, whereas transphilic fractions mostly contain cellulose units together with lignin derived ones and substantial amount of nitrogen-containing moieties. Characterization of colloidal fraction has indicated the presence of compounds from bacterial origin, especially specific nitrogen-containing molecules that are characteristic pyrolysis products of peptidoglycans, along with lignin-derived units. However pyrolysis has revealed significant differences in the detection of nitrogen-containing molecules, which do not parallel nitrogen content of the fractions. Moreover in hydrophobic and transphilic fractions the molecular structure of these compounds, which are mainly nitrogen- and oxygen- containing molecules, has not allowed to ascertain their origin. As the major biological sources of organic nitrogen (proteins, amino sugars, or tetrapyrrole pigments) involve differences in the main nitrogen functionality, two additional spectroscopic methods, namely X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and solid state 15N NMR, have been used to determine the nitrogen functional groups (amide, amine, and N-heterocycle) present in the different fractions of DOM. The combination of these two methods has revealed the occurrence of different functionality of nitrogen, with relative contributions depending on the considered fraction. It has also appeared that Curie point pyrolysis does not account for the presence of nitrogen in macromolecules with the same efficiency depending on the functional group involved. This study has highlighted the importance of combining different analytical approaches to obtain a whole insight into chemical structure of OM and avoid biased information.