Identification of Organic Matter Dispersions Based on Light Scattering Matrices Focusing on Soil Organic Matter Management

Nikolai F Bunkin; Alexey P Glinushkin; Alexey V Shkirin; Dmitriy N Ignatenko; Sergey N Chirikov; Ivan V Savchenko; Valery P Meshalkin; Gennady N Samarin; Alireza Maleki; Valery P Kalinitchenko

doi:10.1021/acsomega.0c04906

Identification of Organic Matter Dispersions Based on Light Scattering Matrices Focusing on Soil Organic Matter Management

ACS Omega. 2020 Dec 16;5(51):33214-33224. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.0c04906. eCollection 2020 Dec 29.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Bauman Moscow State Technical University, 5 2nd Baumanskaya St., Moscow 105005, Russia.
² Prokhorov General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vavilov St. 38, Moscow 119991, Russia.
³ All-Russia Research Institute for Phytopathology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Big Vyazyomy, Moscow Region 143050, Russia.
⁴ National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, 31 Kashirskoe sh., Moscow 115409, Russia.
⁵ D. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia, 9 Miusskaya square, Moscow 125047, Russia.
⁶ Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution "Federal Scientific Agroengineering Center VIM" (FSAC VIM), 5 First Institutskiy pr-d, Moscow 109428, Russia.
⁷ Institute of Molecular Medicine, Sechenov University, 119991 Moscow, Russia.
⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Macquarie University, Macquarie Park, NSW 2109, Australia.
⁹ Institute of Fertility of Soils of South Russia, 2 Krivoshlykova St., Persianovka 346493, Russia.

Abstract

The origin of organic matter, its spread, scattering, and functioning are influenced by the physical structure of liquid or dispersed media of organic matter. Refractive indices of fodder yeast grown on paraffin oil (paprin) and natural gas (gaprin) as well as Lycoperdon spore and organelles were measured by laser phase microscopy. The scattering matrices of aqueous suspensions of paprin, gaprin, and Lycoperdon spores were measured using a laser polarimeter with the scattering angle ranging from 20 to 150°. The experimentally measured scattering matrices have been approximated by the weighted sum of theoretically calculated scattering matrices using the T-matrix code developed by Mishchenko. Most of the particle radii in the filtered fraction of paprin and gaprin were within the range of about 0.05-0.12 μm. Particle radii of the Lycoperdon spore suspension were within the range of 0.4-2.4 μm, which corresponded to both whole spores and their separate organelles. A possibility of identifying a suspension by its scattering matrices was shown for a small difference in the real parts of the refractive index in the example of paprin and gaprin. The measurements of the light scattering matrix showed that for a small size parameter of about 1, the identification of paprin and gaprin can be based only on a difference in the particle shape. Refractive index difference is manifested for the size parameter values higher than 3. An example of a suspension consisting of micron-sized spores and their submicron organelles shows high sensitivity of the scattering matrix to the composition of the dispersed material. The presented data and models help to extrapolate the results of the light scattering matrix study to a vast spectrum of media of organic matter origin and functioning. This study focused on the Biogeosystem Technique (BGT*) transcendental methodology to manage soil as an arena of biodegradation and organic synthesis. A BGT*-based robotic system for intra-soil pulse continuous-discrete water and matter supply directly into the dispersed-aggregated physical structure of the soil media was developed. The system enables transformation of soil into a stable highly productive organic chemical bioreactor for better controlled nanoparticle biomolecular interactions and adsorption by biological and mineral media. The scattering matrix measurement unit is supposed to be used in the robotic system as a diagnostic tool for the dispersion composition of soil organic components.