Sodium hypobromite digestion for boron analysis of plant and soil materials

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Abstract
A sodium hypobromite digestion procedure was developed for total boron content of plant tissue. The method completely released total plant boron and took much less time than a dry ash method. The sodium hypobromite digestion was compatible with a modified curcumin colorimetric method. The sodium hypobromite digestion eliminated interference by nitrate, fluoride and iron, which were previously shown to be potential problems with the colorimetric method. Aluminium eliminated the interference of fluoride on boron analyses by the modified curcumin method without the sodium hypobrornite digestion step. The sodium hypobromite digestion procedure was applied to a number of different soils after the volume of sodium hypobromite to soil sample weight ratio was optimized to release a constant amount of boron. The boron measured did not appear to be total boron in every soil. However, two other methods (sodium carbonate fusion and hydrofluoric acid treatment) recommended for total boron were not entirely successful either for the same soils. Correlations of soil boron values with selected soil chemical and physical measurements suggested that the hydrofluoric acid method was more successful in measuring boron associated with soil organic matter while the sodium hypobromite and sodium carbonate methods were more successful in measuring boron associated with the mineral portion, especially the silt fraction. The sodium hypobromite digestion appeared to be less efficient than sodium carbonate fusion in determining “total”; boron with increasing pH of the soil. The sodium hypobromite digestion boron values of soils may be useful as a boron fraction measurement but should not be considered as total boron.

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