Comparability of composition of carbon functional groups in humic acids between inverse-gated decoupling and cross polarization/magic angle spinning 13C nuclear magnetic resonance techniques

To find a certain relation between the composition of carbon functional groups of humic acids derived from liquid state ¹³C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra acquired with inverse-gated decoupling (IGD), known as a quantitative pulse sequence, and that by solid-state ¹³C NMR with cross polarization/magic angle spinning (CPMAS) techniques, fifteen soil humic acid samples with a wide range of aromaticity were analyzed. Relationships between the proportions of humic acid carbon as alkyl, O-alkyl, and aromatic carbon assessed by the two methods could be regressed to y = ax (r = 0.932-0.956; P < 0.005), respectively. The contents of alkyl, O-alkyl, and aromatic carbon assessed by CPMAS method were larger than those found by IGD method. However, the differences between the two methods were small and exclusive regression to y = x was also significant (r = 0.775-0.941; P < 0.005). Aromaticity calculated from ¹³C CPMAS NMR data also did not differ significantly from those computed from ¹³C NMR spectra with IGD. These observations indicated the comparability of the relative content of carbon functional groups in humic acids except for carboxyl and carbonyl carbon.