Determination of rare earth elements in environmental materials by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

Conference · Sun Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 1996

OSTI ID:273576

Panday, V K; Hoppstock, K; Becker, J S; Dietze, H J ^[1]

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1. Zentralabteilung fuer Chemische Analysen, Juelich (Germany)

Despite the fact that rare earth elements (REE) have found increasing use in modern technology only few data are available on their concentrations in biological and environmental samples. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) has been employed to study the concentration of rare earth elements (REE) in various environmental materials (e.g., pine needles, mussel tissue, apple leaves) available from National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Bureau of European Communities (BCR), and the German Environmental Specimens Bank. After the decomposition of the environmental samples with HNO{sub 3}, the REE (present mostly in the ng/g-range) were separated from the matrix and simultaneously preconcentrated using liquid-liquid extraction with bis(2-ethyl hexyl)-ortho-phosphoric acid (HDEHP) in toluene as a selective reagent at pH = 2 and subsequent back extraction of the elements into the aqueous by 6M HNO{sub 3}. Recoveries of better 90% were obtained for almost all REE. A Perkin Elmer/Sciex ELAN 5000 ICP-MS and HR-ICP-MS ELEMENT from Finnigan MAT were used for quantitative analysis (by external calibration and ID-ICP-MS) of REE. The results of determination of REE concentrations agree well with the data available on some of these materials. Further supplement information on the contents of various REE in these materials.

• OSTI ID: 273576
• Report Number(s): CONF-960113--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

40 CHEMISTRY
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
ECOLOGICAL CONCENTRATION
ENVIRONMENTAL MATERIALS
ICP MASS SPECTROSCOPY
RARE EARTHS