Comparison of three methods for determining boron in soils, plants, and water samples

Abstract

Three instrumental techniques, a colorimetric, fluorometric, and direct‐current plasma atomic emission spectroscopic (DCP‐AES) methods, for boron (B) determination were compared on the basis of precision and accuracy, detection limit, interference, linear working range (LWR), recovery of added B and time. These techniques were applied to the measurement of B in soil extracts, plant extracts, and water samples. The colorimetric method had the lowest (0.002 mg L^‐1), and the DCP‐AES had the highest (0.1 mg L^‐1) detection limit. The DCP‐AES has a LWR of 5 orders of magnitude (0–1000), whereas the colorimetric technique displayed a LWR varying from 0–4 mg L^‐1. The DCP‐AES method had the best precision. This study shows, however, that any of the three techniques could be used for measuring B in soils, plants, and water samples on routine basis, provided method differences of 2% are not considered critical. Otherwise, the colorimetric and fluorometric methods appeared to be the most closely comparable.

Notes

Corresponding author. Present address: Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, Box 1106, New Haven, CT 06504.