14595 IUPAC Gold Book - dissolved organic carbon 10.1351/goldbook.14595 14595 current initialism: DOC 1 Amount concentration of carbon found dissolved in water samples from aquatic systems, measured as total elemental carbon. The "dissolved" fraction of organic carbon is an operational classification. Operationally, DOC is defined as the organic matter that is able to pass through a defined filter (filters generally range in size between \(\pu{0.7 \upmu m}\) and \(\pu{0.22 \upmu m}\)). Conversely, particulate organic carbon (POC) in water is that carbon that is too large and is filtered out of a sample. The DOC in marine and freshwater systems is part of the greatest cycled reservoir of organic matter on Earth and consists mostly of humic substances. DOC is important in the transport and bioavailability of pollutants in aquatic systems. Metals may form strong complexes with DOC, increasing metal solubility and concentration in water, while also reducing metal bioavailability. dissolved organic matter https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/14597 pollutants https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/14928 PAC, 2009, 81, 829. 'Glossary of terms used in ecotoxicology (IUPAC Recommendations 2009)' on page 868 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-08-07-09) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/14595/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/14595/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/14595/plain Citation: 'dissolved organic carbon' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.14595 The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. 2026-06-14T00:44:27+00:00