Abstract
Quantifying total phosphorus contents of organisms can elucidate their physiological condition and the nutrient cycles of ecosystems. Simple, brief, and safe persulfate oxidation methods have been used for total P determination, but oxidizing solutions of different compositions and volumes have been used. Two certified reference materials were used to evaluate digestion efficiencies of different solutions for this study. Although the phosphorus recoveries were low (<90%) without NaOH, phosphorus recoveries using the solution with 4% K2S2O8 and 0.15 M NaOH were complete. Results demonstrated that digestion efficiency depends on the K2S2O8 concentration and on the pH condition. Moreover, the phosphorus recoveries were achieved at >4 mL/mg solution/material ratios for both standard materials. Therefore, the author recommends using >4 mL of the 4% K2S2O8 solution with 0.15 M NaOH for sample materials of <1 mg to quantify the total phosphorus of biological samples.
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Acknowledgments
Dr. K. Koba provided very useful comments for this manuscript. The present study was conducted using Cooperative Research Facilities (Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometer) of the Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University. The author appreciates the valuable comments given by two anonymous reviewers and editorial handling by Dr. Y. Zhu, Associate Editor of this journal. This research was supported by a JSPS Research Fellowship for Young Scientists (20J00607) and Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (21K17879) to YO.
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Onishi, Y. Digestion Efficiency during Alkaline Persulfate Oxidation for Determination of Total Phosphorus Content of Biological Samples. ANAL. SCI. 37, 1771–1774 (2021). https://doi.org/10.2116/analsci.21P116
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2116/analsci.21P116