Selectivity of solid phase extraction for dissolved organic matter in the hypersaline Da Qaidam Lake, China

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) was isolated from the hypersaline Da Qaidam Lake using solid-phase extraction (SPE) methods with five different adsorbents: ENVI-Carb (non-porous graphitized carbon), HLB, PPL, and XAD-8 (polymer based), and ENVI-18 (silica based). Structure-selective assessments of SPE-DOM isolated using the different adsorbents were conducted using a combination of complementary analysis techniques, including dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) analysis, as well as elemental analysis, Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), ¹H nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H NMR) and pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS). The results indicated that the modified polymer based adsorbents (PPL and HLB) exhibited higher DOC recoveries than the others. The PPL and ENVI-Carb cartridges can recover representative nitrogen-containing organic components from the hypersaline lake. The SPE-DOM isolates obtained using ENVI-18 and XAD-8 adsorbents contained higher proportions of purely aliphatic, alkene, and aromatic compounds; the ENVI-Carb and PPL adsorbents showed higher affinity for polar functionalized aliphatic and nitrogen-containing compounds; HLB isolate was enriched with oxygen-rich organic compounds and sulphur-bearing components. The structural and compositional features of SPE-DOM from the hypersaline Da Qaidam Lake indicated the predominately autochthonous sources of organic matter in the lake.