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Chemical Reactions of Nitrites in Acid Soils¹

ABSTRACT

Sodium nitrite at a concentration of 400 ppm N was added to samples of 4 soils and the reaction products studied over several days. Nitrogen (N₂) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) gas evolutions were determined by means of a gas chromatograph. The higher oxides of N (NO + NO₂) were absorbed in alkaline KMnO₄ and then analyzed. Nitrogen gas (N₂) was rapidly released by the acid soils but not by a cation resin used as an artificial medium. Minor amounts of N₂O were detected. All products were the result of chemical rather than microbiological processes. The NO₃^- and higher oxides formed are almost certainly the result of HNO₂ decomposition reactions. The processes leading to the formation of N₂ and N₂O remain in doubt.

About 40% of the NO₂^- remaining after the gaseous atmosphere was flushed free of N₂ was converted to N₂ gas in 24 hours in the Bath silt loam (pH 4.6). In the less acid Fort Collins sandy clay loam (pH 5.6) and Walla Walla silt loam (pH 5.6) the comparable values were 12% and 9.5% respectively. From the Bath silt loam, 36% of the NO₂^- was found in the KMnO₄ trapping solutions, but this required 96 hours. In the same time interval the amounts of these nitrogen oxides evolved and trapped in the systems for the Fort Collins and Walla Walla soils were 26% and 17%.

¹ Approved by the Director, Utah Agr. Exp. Sta., as Journal Paper No. 436. This work was supported in part by the Utah State University Research Council through a fellowship to the senior author and in part by Western Regional Research Project W-31. Taken from a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree by the senior author. Presented before Div. S-2 of the Soil Science Society of America, Aug. 22, 1962.

² Extension Soils Specialist and Assistant Agronomist (Soils), Colorado State University, Fort Collins, and Associate Professor of Agronomy, Utah State University, Logan.

Received for publication September 17, 1964. Accepted for publication November 23, 1964.