Practical issues relating to soil column chromatography for sorption parameter determination
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Updated: Jun 12, 2026

Combined Size and Density Fractionation of Soils for Investigations of Organo-Mineral Interactions
Published on: February 15, 2019
Erping Bi1, Torsten C Schmidt, Stefan B Haderlein
1School of Water Resources and Environment, and Beijing Key Laboratory of Water Resources & Environment Engineering, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), 29 Xueyuan Road, Beijing 100083, PR China. bi@cugb.edu.cn
Abstract:
Determination of sorption distribution coefficients (K(d)) of organic compounds by a dynamic soil column chromatography (SCC) method was developed and validated. Eurosoil 4, quartz, and alumina were chosen as exemplary packing materials. Heterocyclic aromatic compounds were selected in the validation of SCC. The prerequisites of SCC with regard to column dimension, packing procedure, and sample injection volume are discussed. Reproducible soil column packing was achieved by addition of a pre-column and an HPLC pump for subsequent compression of the packed material. Various methods to determine retention times from breakthrough curves are discussed and the use of the half mass method is recommended. To dilute soil with inert material can prevent column-clogging and help to complete experiments in a reasonable period of time. For the chosen probe compounds, quartz rather than alumina proved a suitable dilution material. Non-equilibrium issue can be overcome by conducting the experiments under different flowrates and/or performing numerical simulation.
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