Learn the secrets of soil chemistry and its role in agriculture and the environment. Examine the fundamental laws of soil chemistry, how they affect dissolution, cation and anion exchange, and other reactions. Explore how water can form water-bridges and hydrogen bonding, the most common forces in adsorption, chelation, and more. Discover how electrical charges develop in soils creating electrochemical potentials forcing ions to move into the plant body through barriers such as root membranes, nourishing crops and plants. You can do all this and more with Principles of Soil Chemistry, Fourth Edition.

Since the first edition published in 1982, this resource has made a name for itself as a textbook for upper level undergraduates and as a handy reference for professionals and scientists. This fourth edition reexamines the entire reach of soil chemistry while maintaining the clear, concise style that made previous editions so user-friendly. By completely revising, updating, and incorporating a decade's worth of new information, author Kim Tan has made this edition an entirely new and better book.

See what's new in the Fourth Edition

• Reexamines atoms as the smallest particle that will enter into chemical reactions by probing new advances testifying the presence of subatomic particles and concepts such as string theory
• Underscores oxygen as the key element in soil air and atmosphere for life on earth
• Reevaluates the idea of transformation of orthoclase into albite by simple cation exchange reactions as misleading and bending scientific concepts of ion exchange over the limit of truth
• Examines the role of fertilizers, sulfur, pyrite, acid rain, and nitrogen fixation in soil acidity, underscoring the controversial effect of nitrification on increasing soil acidity over time
• Addresses the old and new approaches to humic acids by comparing the traditional operational concept against the currently proposed supramolecular and pseudomicellar concept
• Proposes soil organics, such as nucleic acids of DNA and others, to also adsorb cation ions held as diffusive ion clouds around the polymers

Tan explains, in easy and simple language, the chemical make-up of the four soil constituents, their chemical reactions and interactions in soils as governed by basic chemical laws, and their importance in agriculture, industry, and the environment. He differentiates soil chemistry from geochemistry and physical chemistry. Containing more than 200 equations, 123 figures, and 38 tables, this popular text and resource supplies a comprehensive treatment of soil chemistry that builds a foundation for work in environmental pollution, organic and inorganic soil contamination, and potential ecological health and environmental health risks.

The fourth edition of a bestseller, this volume is a comprehensive treatment of all topics in the area of soil chemistry. It emphasizes the basics of chemical reactions in soil underscored by the fundamental law of equilibrium and the law of mass action. The book applies simple statistics based on the Nernst equation and applies basic laws in weathering, pedology, and chelation. New topics in this edition include String Theory as a new model for atoms, the concept of soil as an electrochemical cell, oxygen revolution, hypoxia, and hydrotropism.

"...written in a clear and concise manner and makes cross-reference between sections to help the reader; it also has a detailed index which is essential in a book of this nature...useful to have on the shelf to pick up when you wish to seek information about soil chemistry."-Stephen Nortcliff, in Experimental Agriculture, Vol. 47 (3) "...bridges the gap between pure chemistry and soil science and presents soil as a basic entity in a wide range of disciplines." -Bulletin of the International Society of Soil Science "Included in this text are many interesting historic details and other items of information usually overlooked in most recent highly focused textbooks...provides interesting and...useful background and supplementary reading for any course in soil chemistry...a valuable addition to all soils libraries, both public and private." -Soil Science