MONOSACCHARIDE COMPOSITION OF PEAT FRACTIONS BASED ON PARTICLE SIZE

Abstract

The yields of monosaccharides from peat fractions in five organic soils segregated by particle size revealed that as a general trend, the total monosaccharide content decreased as particle size decreased. However, in some peats, the 100-mesh fraction yielded more monosaccharides than the 40-mesh fraction. Likewise, the 200-mesh fraction yielded more monosaccharides than the 100-mesh fraction. The < 200-mesh fraction, however, consistently gave lower yields of the monosaccharides than the 100-mesh fraction. Among the individual monosaccharides, glucose was predominant and its abundance together with xylose and galactose were generally associated with particle size. The foregoing results suggest that decreasing particle size of peat materials need not always imply increasing degree of decomposition. The results also show that the monosaccharide content in the < 200-mesh particles may usefully complement the conventional fibre determination as a measure of the degree of decomposition.