Rare earth elements in coastal seawater were preconcentrated by using chelating resin in a batch method and determined simultaneously by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). In this procedure, matrix components (Na, K, Mg, and Ca) were eliminated to reduce matrix effects in ICP-MS analysis and rare earth elements were concentrated by a concentration factor of 100. The pH dependence of the recovery, resin amounts, amount of ammonium acetate for washing, and elution of adsorbed metals with nitric acid were examined in details to optimize the experimental conditions in sample pretreatment. All rare earth elements in coastal seawater were determined at the ppt or sub-ppt level successfully by the present analytical method.
The rapid determination of rare earth elements (REEs) has been investigated by an on-line system of high performance liquid chromatography/multichannel inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry. In the present system, all REEs could be detected simultaneously in a single chromatographic measurement without spectral interferences. Utilizing a cation exchange column and 2-hydroxy-2-methylpropanoic acid aqueous solution as the mobile phase, the detection limits of 0.4—30 ng ml−1 for all REEs were obtained. The system was applied to the determination of REEs in geological standard rock samples and rare earth impurities in high purity rare earth oxides. The REEs in standard rocks could be determined by the present HPLC/ICP-AES system without pretreatment after acid digestion, although the detection limits were not sufficient for the analysis of rare earth oxides.
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