Aspects of cleaning environmental materials for multi-element analysis, e.g. plant samples

Summary Cleaning of samples is often the first step in the entire procedure of sample preparation in environmental trace element research. The question must generally be raised of whether cleaning is meaningful before chemical investigations with plant material (e.g. for the determination of transfer factors in the soil/plant system) or not (e.g. for food chain analysis in the plant/animal system). The most varied cleaning procedures for plant samples are currently available ranging from dry and wet wiping of the leaf or needle surface up to the complete removal of the cuticule with the aid of chloroform. There is at present no standardized cleaning procedure for plant samples so that it is frequently not possible to compare analytical data from different working groups studying the same plant species.Modified paper presented at the IAEA training course on Sampling, sample preparation and data evaluation for multielement and radionuclide analysis by nuclear and instrumental methods from November 6th to December 1st 1989 at the Research Centre in Jülich, FRG