In literature, different authors have used different temperatures and different incubation periods. So, kindly suggest the most appropriate temperature and incubation period for determination of soil organic matter by LOI method using muffle furnace.
5g finely ground in a porcelain crucible at 550C overneighth will do it!
For authoritative reference, you may check: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-31211-6_1
Sir, the problem is that this is not accessible from our university proxy.
550C overnight often works but significant losses have been recorded up to 650C.
The caution with LOI is that at temperatures above 450 C, carbonates will break down and give false high OM contents. You can avoid this by ashing overnight at 425 C. The other factor that can affect resuts is bound water; we have found more consistent results if samples were pre-dried at 120C, and then weighed before ashing.
Please give more information. In sandy soils 550 ºC could be enough for. But not in soils with clays. You can read an article for us (you can get it free) that in this type of soils eve to 700 ºC you have remains of SOM not burnt. For security, you can use 900 ºC, but increasing the temperature very slowly....
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