Comparison between DAX-8 and C-18 solid phase extraction of rainwater dissolved organic matter

Rainwater is a very low concentrated matrix and, for dissolved organic matter (DOM) characterization, an efficient extraction procedure is essential. Isolation procedures based on the adsorption onto XAD-8 and C-18 sorbents have been used in the literature for rainwater DOM isolation, but a comparison between these procedures is lacking. In this work, UV–visible and molecular fluorescence spectroscopies highlighted differences between rainwater DOM isolated by DAX-8 (replacement for XAD-8) and by C-18. It was possible to recover higher rainwater DOM percentage by the C-18 based procedure than by the DAX-8 one. Rainwater protein-like compounds were better concentrated by the C-18 procedure than by the DAX-8 one, while humic-like compounds were similarly concentrated by both procedures. Furthermore, rainwater DOM extracted by the C-18 procedure was more representative of the global matrix, while DAX-8 preferentially extracted humic-like compounds.