Approaches to the accurate characterization of high purity metal fluorides and fluoride glasses

Abstract

The analytical challenges posed by the measurement of trace contaminants in high purity metal fluorides require that innovative chemical preparation procedures be used to enhance existing instrumental techniques. The instrumental techniques used to analyze these difficult matrices must be sensitive enough to detect extremely low levels of trace impurities, and the background interferences derived from the matrix (metal fluoride or glass) must be minimized. A survey of analytical techniques that have the necessary characteristics to analyze these materials will be given. In addition, means of controlling the chemical blank will be presented. Mass and atomic spectrometric techniques will be discussed, specifically graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GFAAS) and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Analytical procedures using GFAAS and ICP-MS have been developed to determine sub ppb (part per billion) levels of contaminants in high purity fluoride materials.