Quantitative determination of total sulfur in plant tissues using acid digestion and ion-chromatography

Journal Article · · Agronomy Journal; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2134/agronj1991.00021962008300010034x· OSTI ID:5731598

Hafez, A A; Goyal, S S; Rains, D W ^[1]

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1. Univ. of California, Davis (United States)

Total sulfur determination in plant material can be done either by expensive and sophisticated equipment such as an inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrophotometer (ICP-AES), or tedious and time consuming procedures like the Johnson and Nishita or oxygen combustion method, or by S-auto-analyzers. Since ion-chromatography has demonstrated versatility in inorganic ion analysis, it was adopted in this paper to measure SO{sub 4} in wet acid digests of plant materials. Plant tissues (200 mg) were digested with 2 mL HNO{sub 3}+1mL 70% HCIO{sub 4} and subsequently evaporated to dryness in order to minimize the HCIO{sub 4} concentration for efficient ion-chromatography. Magnesium oxide was dissolved in HNO{sub 3} at a rate of 1.25 g L{sup {minus}1} to provide cations to prevent the losses of S gases. Dionex OmniPac PAX-500 analytical column was used to provide simultaneous anion exchange and reverse-phase-ion-chromatography. Using 25 mM NaOH in 45% acetonitrile as eluent at a rate of 0.8 mL min{sup {minus}1}, the analysis time was 10 min/sample. A complete recovery of total S from plant materials and with sulfur added as cysteine, methionine, glutathione, and sulfate is demonstrated. The method is simple, accurate, reproducible, and can be automated.

• OSTI ID: 5731598
• Journal Information: Agronomy Journal; (United States), Vol. 83:1; ISSN 0002-1962
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

37 INORGANIC
ORGANIC
PHYSICAL AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
PLANT TISSUES
QUANTITATIVE CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
SULFUR
ION EXCHANGE CHROMATOGRAPHY
ACCURACY
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION
CYSTEINE
ECOLOGICAL CONCENTRATION
GLUTATHIONE
MEASURING METHODS
METHIONINE
SULFATES
AMINO ACIDS
BODY
CARBOXYLIC ACIDS
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
CHROMATOGRAPHY
DRUGS
ELEMENTS
LIPOTROPIC FACTORS
NONMETALS
ORGANIC ACIDS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC SULFUR COMPOUNDS
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PEPTIDES
POLYPEPTIDES
PROTEINS
RADIOPROTECTIVE SUBSTANCES
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SULFUR COMPOUNDS
THIOLS
TISSUES
400102* - Chemical & Spectral Procedures
540210 - Environment
Terrestrial- Basic Studies- (1990-)