Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is suitable for the analysis of cations
and anions, including organic acids, in soil solution, In the concent
ration range typical for soil solutions, the standard deviation of the
linear calibration function is, with the exception of NH4+ and Na+ (a
pproximate to 12%), better than 6%, Using drift correction procedures,
CE is applicable for routine analysis, The advantage of this analytic
al technique is the minimal sample consumption of about 5 to 10 nL per
analytical run, which enables new approaches for soil solution collec
tion and analysis on a microscale level, As an example, a podzol profi
le was covered by a vertical matrix of 6 x 10 microlysimeters (samplin
g distance 2 cm), High resolution maps of soil solution chemistry show
ed, that, although some solutes had concentrations related to soil hor
izons (UV as measure for DOC, SO42-, Al3+), in general there was littl
e correlation between the clearly visible soil horizon borders and con
centration isolines, For all solutes analyzed even within soil horizon
s marked concentration gradients could be observed.