I’m supposed to already understand this for a Msc course, but it’s been ages since I’ve had chemistry lessons in high school and I was never really any good in it. Can someone explain in the most simple terms how soil acidification works? I understand it’s caused by unbound H+ ions in the soil. What I do not understand is N and S emisions cause more unbound H+ ions in the soil. Where do they come form and why are they released?
In: Chemistry
I assume you’re talking about soil acidification in an agricultural context.
Soil is fertilized by dumping huge amounts of Nitrogen, usually in the form of Ammonium (NH4+).
In the soil, bacteria convert the ammonium to nitrate (N03-). You’ll notice the nitrate doesn’t use the 4H+ from ammonium.
So the plants eat the nitrate, leaving behind loose, positively-charged hydrogen.
The soil becomes more acidic in this process because “a substance with lots of available positively-charged hydrogen” is basically a definition of an acid.
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