Reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography of the stable electrophoretic fractions of soil humic acids

Reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) has been used for the hydrophobicity analysis of soil humic acids and their stable electrophoretic fractions A, B, and C + D preliminarily prepared by the combination of gel permeation chromatography on Sephadex with polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. In two humic acid preparations of different genesis, the electrophoretic fraction A of the larger molecular size was the most hydrophobic (60–73% of the fraction was irreversibly adsorbed on a hydrophobic reversed-phase (RF) column C18), and the fraction C + D of the smallest molecular size was the most hydrophilic. The fraction B of medium size occupied an intermediate position (33–47% of the fraction was irreversibly adsorbed on the column). The use of RP-HPLC allowed for the first time detecting the hydrophobic electrophoretic fraction A of the largest molecular size mainly composed of aliphatic long-chained hydrocarbon, protein, and carbohydrate fragments in soil humic acids. Data on the degree of hydrophobicity and the earlier obtained physicochemical characteristics of stable electrophoretic fractions are discussed in terms of the supramolecular and macromolecular structure of soil humic acids.