Focused microwave-assisted digestion of vegetal materials for the determination of essential mineral nutrients

An open focused microwave-assisted digestion procedure has been developed to decompose and dissolve vegetal matrices for subsequent macro- and micronutrients analysis. The parameters of the microwave oven were evaluated using an experimental design. Sulfuric acid (5 mL) and hydrogen peroxide (3 mL) were found to be suitable for quantitative determination of Ca, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, N, P, and Zn in 0.100–0.500 g of vegetal sample. The precision was better than 6% for all elements at different concentrations. Results for reference and laboratory control materials are in agreement with certified and indicative values. In addition, the sample digest could be used for ICP-OES of all the elements mentioned. The proposed microwave-assisted digestion procedure offers the ability to determine the most important essential plant nutrients in one unique solution by means of analytical techniques usually found in most laboratories.