The pore–solid interface and its characteristics play a key role in chemical interactions between minerals in the solid soil matrix and the liquid in pore space and, consequently, solute transport in soils. Specific surface area (SSA), typically measured to characterize the pore–solid interface, depends not only on the particle size distribution (PSD) but also on particle shapes and surface roughness. In this note, we investigate the effects of surface roughness and probing molecule size on SSA estimation, use concepts from fractals, and theoretically estimate SSA from PSD and the water retention curve (WRC). The former is used to characterize the particle sizes and the latter to approximately quantify the pore–solid interface roughness by determining the surface fractal dimension. To evaluate our approach, we use five Washington and 21 Arizona soils for which both PSDs and WRCs were accurately measured over a wide range of particle sizes and matric potentials. Comparison with the experiments show that the proposed method estimates the SSA reasonably well, with RMSE = 16.8 and 30.1 m² g^–1 and average relative error = –56 and –35% for the Washington and Arizona datasets, respectively.

中文翻译：

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估计比表面积：结合表面粗糙度和探测分子大小的影响

孔固界面及其特性在固体土壤基质中的矿物质与孔隙空间中的液体之间的化学相互作用中起着关键作用，因此，土壤中的溶质输运。比表面积 (SSA) 通常用于表征孔-固体界面，它不仅取决于粒度分布 (PSD)，还取决于颗粒形状和表面粗糙度。在本说明中，我们研究表面粗糙度和探测分子大小对 SSA 估计的影响，使用分形的概念，并从 PSD 和保水曲线 (WRC) 理论上估计 SSA。前者用于表征粒度，后者通过确定表面分形维数来近似量化孔-固体界面粗糙度。为了评估我们的方法，我们使用了 5 个华盛顿和 21 个亚利桑那土壤，在广泛的粒径和基质电位范围内准确测量了 PSD 和 WRC。与实验的比较表明，所提出的方法对 SSA 的估计相当好，RMSE = 16.8 和 30.1 m华盛顿和亚利桑那数据集的² g ^–1和平均相对误差分别为 –56% 和 –35%。