A phase-transfer strategy for high-throughput determination of total oxidizable substances in soil

In this work, we developed and validated a practical phase-transfer headspace GC method that leverages automated headspace sampling for high-throughput determination of total oxidizable substances in porous media (i.e., soil). Following the reaction of oxidizable substances in porous media with an excess of potassium dichromate, the residual potassium dichromate oxidizes sodium oxalate under acidic conditions to generate carbon dioxide. The generated carbon dioxide was then quantitatively measured using the headspace GC technique. The results of our study showed that the headspace method boasted a high level of precision and sensitivity, thereby confirming the reliability of this headspace approach in the determination of total oxidizable substances. The phase-transfer strategy thus provides a dependable technique that can serve as a rapid screening tool and is well suited for large-scale sample detection and monitoring in industrial applications.