Chemical and spectroscopic characterization of marine dissolved organic matter isolated using coupled reverse osmosis–electrodialysis

The coupled reverse osmosis–electrodialysis (RO/ED) method was used to isolate dissolved organic matter (DOM) from 16 seawater samples. The average yield of organic carbon was 75 ± 12%, which is consistently greater than the yields of organic carbon that have been commonly achieved using XAD resins, C18 adsorbents, and cross-flow ultrafiltration. UV–visible absorbance spectra and molar C/N ratios of isolated samples were consistent with the corresponding properties of DOM in the original seawater samples, indicating that DOM samples can be isolated using the coupled RO/ED method without any bias for/against these two properties. Five of the samples were desalted sufficiently that reliable measurements of their 13C and 1HNMR spectra and their Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) mass spectra could be obtained. The 13C and 1HNMR spectra of RO/ED samples differed distinctly from those of samples that have been isolated in much lower yields by other methods. In particular, RO/ED samples contained a relatively lower proportion of carbohydrate carbon and a relatively greater proportion of alkyl carbon than samples that have been isolated using cross-flow ultrafiltration. From the FTICR mass spectra of RO/ED samples, samples from the open ocean contained a much lower proportion of unsaturated compounds and a much higher proportion of fatty acids than coastal samples.