Two methods of total acidity determination for humic substances are compared: (1) the traditional barium hydroxide method, and (2) a direct potentiometric titration after elution of humic substances through a cation exchange resin. The first method always gave higher results than the second method. A poor analytical precision observed for the former method was attributed to carbonation. Low-molecular-weight phenolic acids of known total acidity were also analyzed by the two methods. The first method most likely underestimates results when weakly acidic compounds do not precipitate as barium salts. The low values shown by the second method are partially due to adsorption of humic material on the resin and, possibly, to insufficient protonation of acidic groups during resin elution.
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