E. Schnug et S. Haneklaus, PARAMETERS INFLUENCING THE CALCINATION OF PLANT MATERIALS IN MUFFLE FURNACES AND THEIR IMPORTANCE FOR MICRONUTRIENT ANALYSIS, Communications in soil science and plant analysis, 27(5-8), 1996, pp. 993-1000
Calcination in muffle furnaces is a widely used method for the mineral
ization of plant samples. During the combustion process, however, the
atmosphere inside a muffle furnace tends to be reducing which has a ne
gative impact on the recovery of micronutrients from plant materials.
Higher loads of organic matter in a furnace decrease the recovery of C
u < B < Zn. In the case of Cu and partly also of Zn the reason for the
lower recovery is the absorption of Cu by organic particles remaining
in the filter. In the case of B and Zn volatile losses of these eleme
nts are the predominating reason for analytical faults related to the
calcination process. The determination of B from samples combusted in
muffle furnaces is disturbed by B released from fire-clay inlets, This
error increases with the time the muffle furnace is in use. As B vapo
rs are only absorbed by alkaline surfaces such as plant ashes, blank s
amples will only detect this error if they contain an alkaline substan
ce such as Ca(OH)(2).