Microwave digestion of fertilizers and soil amendments

The trace element pollution hazard of the continuous and large scale application of fertilizers and other amendments to soils depends in part on the chemical composition of these materials. Complete sample dissolution is generally required prior to total elemental analyses. The objectives of this study were to evaluate closed vessel microwave digestion procedures, using HNO3, HF, H2O2, and H3BO3, for the total dissolution of fertilizers and soil amendments and to develop a general digestion guide for individual samples. Twenty-six materials, including commercial fertilizers, rock phosphate, liming materials, organic sources, and a soil sample were studied. More than 99.5% of each of these materials could be dissolved. Commercial nitrogen (N) fertilizers, most of the ammonium phosphates, and a potassium chloride sample could be completely dissolved using exclusively HNO3. The other samples required HNO3 and HF, used either in mixtures or consecutively in a stepwise procedure. The sewage sludge materials, the soil sample, and one of the rock phosphates were the only samples that could not be totally dissolved. No improvement in the digestions was observed by including H2O2. No significant contamination was evident during the digestions and satisfactory recoveries of 14 trace elements were obtained in digests of 2 standard reference materials. The proposed dissolution procedures are simple and safe. The usual quickness of microwave procedures was partially sacrificed to obtain a more complete dissolution of the samples. Digests obtained with these procedures could be potentially analyzed for other analytes, with the obvious exceptions of N, fluorine (F), and boron (B).