Spectrophotometric determination of boron in plants using monosegmented continuous flow analysis

Abstract

A monosegmented continuous flow analysis (MCFA) procedure for the spectrophotometric determination of boron using azomethine-H as colour reagent is presented. Under the experimental conditions described the calibration graph is linear up to 4.00 µg ml^–1. The detection limit found is 0.02 µg ml^–1, calculated from three times the standard deviation of the blank signal. The common interfering elements present in plants were investigated under dynamic MCFA conditions. As expected, iron and copper present the most severe interferences. This MCFA method for the determination of boron was used with test samples from the Plant Sample Exchange Programme (PSEP) of the Wageningen Agricultural University. The results compared favourably with those obtained by the conventional static procedure and those published by the PSEP.