Determination of Total Nitrogen in Solid Samples by Two-Step Digestion–Ultraviolet Spectrophotometry Method

A two-step digestion–ultraviolet (UV) spectrophotometry method for total nitrogen (N) determination in solid samples is described in this work. Three influencing factors (amount of hydrogen peroxide, amount of sulfuric acid, and digestion time) of the digestion are optimized, and for digestion of a 0.1-g solid sample, the optimal conditions are 0.5 mL of sulfuric acid, 0.2 mL of hydrogen peroxide, and 40 min of the digestion time. The results of ion chromatography show that under the optimal conditions the organic nitrogen almost quantitatively mineralizes into ammonium in the first digestion. The nitrogen content in six real samples has been analyzed under the optimal conditions, and the nitrogen recovery rates of standard compounds added in the real samples were between 88% and 99%. The results obtained by two-step digestion–UV spectrophotometry method are consistent with those by classical Kjeldahl method (correlation coefficient is 0.9999). The possible degradation pathways of three amino acids were also proposed.