A comparison of wet oxidation methods for determination of total phosphorus in soils

For 15 soils with widely different extractability of phosphorus (P) two newly introduced digestion techniques for determining total P (P_t) were compared with the standard perchloric acid digestion procedure. The two digestion techniques were: (1) concentrated H₂SO₄ plus 30 % H₂O₂ at 360 °C, (2) concentrated HCl plus concentrated HNO₃ in the ratio 3:1 (aqua regia) at 140 °C. Almost equal amounts of P_t were extracted by the two methods (mean = 188.7 mg kg^—1 for H₂SO₄/H₂O₂ and 188.4 mg kg^—1 for aqua regia) which were slightly higher than the standard method (mean = 183.8 mg kg^—1). However, there is no statistical difference among the three digestion methods, suggesting that the tested methods should be useful for estimating P_t in soils with high content of organic C, eliminating the danger of explosion when hot concentrated HClO₄ is used.