Artificial Humic Acids: Sustainable Materials against Climate Change

Abstract

Humic acid, as a natural organic matter, is widely distributed in surface soil, oceans, rivers, and other ecological environments throughout the whole earth ecosystem. Humic acid provides abundant organic carbon and helps to maintain a hydrated, pH and redox buffered environment hosting the soil microbiome. Humic acid is however also a largely ignored polymer material full of exciting functional properties, and its scale is enormous. This perspective article discusses its synthesis and management as a tool to tackle parts of the climate crisis as well its use in technological applications, as made by chemical conversion of agricultural side products to artificial humic acids.

Keywords: CO2 remediation; humic acid; hydrothermal processes.

Figure 1

Comparison of different carbon pools to illustrate relative importance.

Scheme 1

Simplified structure of an average humic acid.

Figure 2

Recrystallization and morphology changes by interaction with an artificial humic acid. a) Iron phosphate nanofibers after HTH reaction, b) stabilization and tectonic rearrangement of clay nanosheets in treated waste water sludge.