Title: partial digestion Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - partial digestion DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.P04411 Status: current Definition In partial digestion and/or selective digestion procedures only part or some of the analytes present are brought into solution. This may be preferred to total decomposition if relative concentrations of the analyte in the test samples provide sufficient information (e.g. materials for geochemical exploration). Related Term - decomposition: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/D01547 Source - PAC, 1988, 60, 1461. 'Nomenclature, symbols, units and their usage in spectrochemical analysis-X. Preparation of materials for analytical atomic spectroscopy and other related techniques (Recommendations 1988)' on page 1469 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac198860091461) Other Outputs - html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/P04411/html - json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/P04411/json - xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/P04411/xml Citation: Citation: 'partial digestion' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.P04411 License: The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. Collection: If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . Disclaimer: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. Accessed: 2026-05-12T03:56:25+00:00