Evaluation of wet and dry digestion methods for boron determination in plant samples by icp‐aes

Boron contamination from pyrex digestion tubes was shown to be highly variable depending on the digestion acid used and the number of digestions. Nitric acid removed more boron from the pyrex glass than nitric‐perchloric acid and both acids removed more boron from new digestion tubes than from older tubes. A nitric acid digestion method for plant tissue analysis was evaluated for boron determination using nalgene bottles instead of pyrex digestion tubes. Analysis of National Bureau of Standards plant materials‐orchard, spinach, and tomato leaves‐digested with nitric acid in nalgene bottles and dry‐ashed compared well with the NBS values. Digestion time for boron determination using this method was shown to be short (1–4 hours).