What is the simple, rapid and reliable method used to determine the oxide minerals in sand using AAS?
I would say that Wet Digestion method as described on this paper below:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-02717-x
Regards.
Do you want to know what the "Total" elemental content is, or a fraction (water soluble, acid soluble etc).
Do you want to know how much of each oxide is present, or the cations of the oxides? You may be better off doing analysis by XRF, rather than attempting to digest sand.
The method in Matheus Mendes 's answer (Chandrasekaran et al 2021) will be highly unlikely to extract all of the oxides very reliably, as the ratio of 2.5 g sand to 10 ml HNO3 + 1ml H2O2 will only solubilize a very small portion of the total. If it was successful, then the digestion tubes (presumably glass, Chandrasekaran et al 2021 did not specify the material) would also dissolve, as the composition of glass is essentially sand.
You might be better off consulting a soil analysis handbook (eg Rayment and Lyons 2010: https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/6418) for some detailed examples of digestion techniques. Consulting a friendly local soil scientist at your institution might also be highly beneficial.
I would also recommend to perform an XRF analysis and many others, but he asked for a specific AAS method. Matthew Wheal gave awesome explanation about the drawbacks regarding this method.
Me too, would rather recommend XRF method, in the company I worked with, once we classify the major element of the sand, the method code on the right weight and flux is used to fuse and come up with a clear glass bead. If XRF equipment is not available, the sample can be digested using 4 acid (HNO3-HCl-HF-HClO4) using teflon test tube/beaker but the disadvantage is that Si can't be determined but the advantage is that if you use ICP-OES/MS almost 65 elements can be determined simultaneously in just single run with very good accuracy. Using AAS is quite tedious because it is time consuming analyzing 1 element/cathode lamp and the limitations were validation is still needed...then use chemical factor to get the oxides equivalent which is simple.
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