Highly weathered tropical soils present high amount of colloids with variable electrical charge. However, there are few references related to the quantification of such charges, mainly in soils with acric attributes, which represent one of the extremes in the weathering scale. In this study permanent and variable charges were determined in four Oxisols and compared to an Alfisol with predominantly permanent charge. Samples were investigated using the Cs+ adsorption method, which measures the structural permanent charge (sigmao) and is based on the preference of Cs+ over Li+ in the siloxane surface sites and the lower selectivity of ionizable surface group for the cesium ion. The variable charge represented more than 50% of the total charge of the evaluated soil samples. Two of the four Oxisols with acric properties had a significant permanent structural charge, probably due to small quantities of aluminum hydroxy-interlayer vermiculite and chlorite. The amount of permanent structural charges presented by the Alfisol was five times higher as compared to the Oxisols, which may be attributed to their mineral composition differences. The cesium adsorption method was able to quantify significant amounts of structural charges even in soils with a low amount of 2:1 clay minerals.
cesium; electrochemical; ionic exchange
