The analysis of soils for elemental contents presents challenges during the sample preparation step. A common method for preparing a soil sample for inorganic elemental analysis involves digesting the soil sample in an acid that is heated to near-boiling to extract the elements for analysis. When using open vessels in heating blocks, this extraction method typically takes four hours or more to complete. The sample must then be centrifuged or filtered to remove solid particles prior to analysis. The use of a microwave digestion system can speed this up significantly by completing the acid digestion in less than 50 minutes.
This work demonstrates the ability of the Avio® 220 Max hybrid simultaneous ICP-OES to reliably and effectively analyze a variety of soil samples for an array of elements over a wide range of concentrations.