Digestion systems

It is of importance that the digestion can be carried out in a safe, reproducible and easy way, i.e. without much manual effort in a short time. Since sample preparation typically ties up most of the working time, this is also of economic significance. Wet chemical digestions utilizing various mineral acids (e.g., HCl, HNO3, HF, H2SO4, etc.), hydrogen peroxide and other liquid reagents are either being done in an open system, that is, under atmospheric pressure, or in closed vessels. These samples may be heated in convection or microwave ovens. Accordingly, these processes are described more-or-less synonymously as acid digestion and pressure digestion or microwave digestion (microwave decomposition) and microwave pressure digestion.