Permanganate oxidation and organic matter: review and next steps

We will lay the groundwork for this session by overviewing principles and practice of permanganate oxidation to measure organic matter pools. Six major themes will be addressed: (1) the history of permanganate oxidation, (2) thermodynamic and kinetic principles of permanganate oxidation of organic matter, (3) sensitivity of permanganate to organic matter structure, (4) biomimetic potential, (5) interpreting what soil permanganate oxidizable carbon (POXC) is, and (6) salient questions and potential future research steps. In addition, we will use this platform to create a space to briefly communicate our story on our how team came to be, as we all had different perspectives on permanganate research across multiple disciplines and will emphasize how efforts to unify the language of soil lability when relying on the permanganate oxidation reaction will advance soil chemistry research in the future. Using this structure, we intend to create a strong introduction to the session as well as inspire continuing conversations and new collaborations in the soil organic matter research community. Other abstracts in this session will be briefly previewed and integrated into this discussion framework.