Sodium Hypobromite Oxidation Method for Determination of Total Phosphorus in Plant Materials1

Abstract
A simple, sensitive, precise, and rapid method for determination of total P in plant materials is described. The sample is heated with alkaline sodium hypobromite solution to oxidize the P compounds to phosphate, and the phosphate thus obtained is extracted with 1N H2SO4 and determined colorimetrically by a heteropoly blue color method. Comparison of results obtained by the hypobromite oxidation and HNO3‐HCIO4 digestion procedures showed that the average total P values by the two methods for 20 plant samples and animal manures analyzed were 0.385 and 0.384%, respectively. In addition to being safe, digestion of plant samples with sodium hypobromite solution and colorimetric determination of the extracted P by the method of Murphy and Riley permits 100 analyses to be performed by a single operator in a normal working day.

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