Soil adsorption and the chemical nature of the soil organic matter

In 1998, Evanko and Dzombak published research which has parallels with some pesticides and their metabolites/degradation products. In summary, organic acids can be much more highly sorbed to soil than would be expected given the log KOW (log DOW) of their deprotonated forms. The extent to which this occurs can be directly related back to the number, type and configuration of the functional groups. Examples of such behaviour can be and have been found in current commercial pesticide (and non-pesticide) chemistry.