A method to determine mineralization kinetics of a decomposable part of soil organic matter in the soil

A new method was proposed that complements the value of active carbon in the soil expressed as hot-water soluble carbon C hws . The method is based on vacuum measurements of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) of soil suspensions using an Oxi Top Control system manufactured by the WTW Merck Company that is destined for hydrochemical analyses of organically contaminated waters. Measurements will provide BOD values for particular days of incubation; total limit BOD t can be determined from these values, and it is possible to calculate the rate constant k 1 of mineralization of a decomposable part of soil organic matter. It is typical of soil organic matter (SOM) of a given soil sample and comparable with the BOD 5 :COD (chemical oxygen demand) ratio that is used to evaluate degradability of water organic contamination in hydrochemical analytics.