Determination of Organic Carbon in Soil and Sediment by the Elemental Analyzer with Silver Cup Digestion Method

WANG Junjie; WANG Qiaohuan; XIONG Manyan; SONG Xiangmei; WANG Meie; FU Huimin; LI Hong; MENG Ling

doi:10.15898/j.ykcs.202409100185

Rock and Mineral Analysis > 2024 > 43(6): 936-944. > DOI: 10.15898/j.ykcs.202409100185

WANG Junjie，WANG Qiaohuan，XIONG Manyan，et al. Determination of Organic Carbon in Soil and Sediment by the Elemental Analyzer with Silver Cup Digestion Method[J]. Rock and Mineral Analysis，2024，43（6）：936−944. DOI: 10.15898/j.ykcs.202409100185

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Determination of Organic Carbon in Soil and Sediment by the Elemental Analyzer with Silver Cup Digestion Method

State Key Laboratory for Ecological Security of Regions and Cities, State Key Laboratory for Ecological Security of Regions and Cities, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China

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Received Date: September 09, 2024
Revised Date: November 25, 2024
Accepted Date: December 03, 2024
Available Online: December 26, 2024
Published Date: December 26, 2024

Abstract

HIGHLIGHTS
(1) The silver cup digestion-elemental analyzer method can be used to determine organic carbon in soil and sediment.

(2) The use of customized copper plates with the silver cup method reduces the pretreatment process to 1h, which allows the rapid processing of large quantities of soil and sediment samples.

(3) For samples with high inorganic carbon content, the addition of extra acid for digestion is proposed to completely remove the inorganic carbon for the determination of organic carbon in soil and sediment with the silver cup-elemental analyzer method.

ABSTRACT

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is an important indicator of soil health and ecosystem functioning and is of great significance for agricultural production and environmental protection. Accurate determination of SOC content is essential for assessing soil quality, optimizing fertilizer management, improving crop yields, and contributing greatly in the research of tackling climate change as well as the carbon cycle. A rapid and accurate method for the determination of organic carbon in soil and sediment was established to support scientific research and agricultural production. The silver cup digestion-elemental analyzer method was used to process soil samples using 81-porosity copper plates and silver cups by optimizing sample pretreatment, including acid concentration and volume, sample weight as well as digestion temperature. The specific procedure was initially weighing 25mg of sample using Φ5mm×9mm silver cups, then adding 80L of 2mol/L hydrochloric acid to remove inorganic carbon, followed by drying the sample on an electric hot plate at 70℃. Samples with high inorganic carbon were treated by repeated acid addition. Low and high content standards were used to form a mixed standard curve to quantify the organic carbon with a daily calibration method. The method demonstrated excellent linearity in the range of 21.2−6704.3μg of organic carbon content with a linear correlation coefficient of 0.9998. The limits of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ) of the method were 0.07% and 0.23%, respectively, based on a sample weight of 25mg. The precision of organic carbon determined for six standard substances (GBW07406, GBW07385, GBW07391, GBW07544, GBW07544, GBW07546 and GBW07365) ranged from 0.67% to 5.14%, with all measured values falling within the range of the standard values. The method demonstrates high precision and accuracy, which meets the requirements for the determination of organic carbon in soil and sediment and is suitable for the analysis of large quantities of samples.
- soil,
- sediments,
- organic carbon,
- silver cup digestion,
- element analyzer

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References (23)

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