Ashing of Bone: Errors Due to Loss of CO2 and Its Correction

Background: Ashing is widely used to determine weight fraction of water-free bone that is mineral, but no standard procedure exists and the range of techniques used spans a range of temperatures and times over which the amount of weight loss is variable. We show that variability is largely due to progressive loss of CO₂ from CO₃ ^2- ions in the apatite crystal lattice, beginning at 600⁰C, typically used for ashing. We test the effect of varying …