The determination of carbon content is one of the most important parameters
of sample analysis in environmental sciences. Often it is not only important to know the
total carbon content of the sample, but also the content of organic and inorganic carbon.
In my thesis I investigated the comparability of different known methods for the
determining of total carbon, total organic carbon and inorganic carbon in biochar samples
and selected complex environmental samples such as soil, tailings, road dust, house dust
and attic dust. I compared the results obtained by thermogravimetric (TG) analysis, Total
Organic Carbon (TOC) analysis and CHN analysis. The results showed that while TG
analysis is a very sensitive and suitable analysis for assessing the organic matter content
of biochar samples. It is far less suitable for heavily polluted environmental samples
containing high concentrations of potentially toxic elements. This analysis proved to be
even less suitable for estimating the inorganic carbon (IC) content of heavily polluted
environmental samples. TOC analysis proved to be the least sensitive of the three methods
used, making it impossible to determine low levels of IC in our samples. The comparison
of the results of CHN analysis and TOC analysis showed a high agreement between the
results of TC content in the analysed samples, except for the highly contaminated
samples.
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