What allows organic matter to retain water, enabling its life-giving properties? This is what a recent study published in PNAS Nexus hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated the water-retaining properties of organic matter. This study holds the potential to shed light on how and why evidence of water has been found in ancient samples, both on Earth and beyond.
For the study, the researchers used a combination of laboratory experiments and computer models to analyze clays mixed with glucose, amylose, and amylopectin, the last two of which are longer assemblages of glucose. The goal of the study was to ascertain the nanoscale processes responsible for organic matter retaining water as well as it does. In the end, the researchers found that hydrogen bonds are the key contributor for organic matter to retain water.
“The right amount of minerals and organic matter in soils leads to healthy soils with good moisture,” said Dr. Ludmilla Aristilde, who is an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at northwestern University and a co-author on the study. “It’s something everyone has experienced, but we haven’t fully understood the physics and chemistry of how that works. By figuring this out, we could potentially engineer soil to have the right chemistry, turning it into long-term sponges that preserve moisture.”
These results help shed light on how organic matter contributes to growing plants while also enabling scientists to better understand water properties on world beyond Earth, like Mars, asteroids, and potentially exoplanets. This could especially come into play with future sample returns from Mars that could provide researchers with greater insight into ancient life on Mars.
What new discoveries about organic matter will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: PNAS Nexus, EurekAlert!
Featured Image: Artist’s illustration of water being trapped within soil. (Credit: Aristilde Research Group/Northwestern University)