Evaluation of Soil-organic Matter Amendments by Differential Thermal Analysis.

Differential thermal analysis of organic matter that has gone through a composting process apart from the mineral soil environment reveals two regions of thermally induced chemical degradation near 350ºC and 550ºC. These two peaks are representative of low thermal stability aliphatic bonds, and high thermal stability aromatic bonds, respectively.  The evaluation of leaf litter that naturally decomposed in a mineral soil also displays these two regions, but additionally exhibits a thermally induced chemical degradation peak near 450ºC.  Low temperature (350ºC) decomposition peaks were abundant in grass and shrub litters but not in non-vegetated soils.