Dissolved organic matter (DOM), a complex mixture of thousands if not millions of compounds, is ubiquitous in aquatic systems where it underpins food webs, plays a critical role in the global carbon cycle , and may hold countless natural products for use in biotechnology applications . From understanding global biogeochemical cycles to the complex ecological networks corresponding exo-metabolomes which underpin them, it is critical that researchers have the means and understanding with which to adequately quantify and characterise DOM, but its highly dilute and variable nature means that it is challenging to study, and its chemical composition remains poorly characterised .