Characterisation of high purity rare-earth oxides by x-ray fluorescence methods

Abstract

X-ray fluorescence methods for the determination of individual rare earth impurities in high purity rare earth oxidesviz., Y2O3, La2O3, CeO2, Pr6O11, Nd2O3, Sm2O3, Eu2O3, Gd2O3, Tb4O7, Dy2O3, Ho2O3 and Er2O3 have been developed in our laboratory. The samples are converted to oxalate form and double-layer pellets are prepared using boric acid as binding material. A semiautomatic x-ray spectrometer is used for the analyses. Choice of instrumental parameters and analysis lines is discussed. The determination range varies from 0.005% to 1.0% for most elements with good precision and adequate accuracy.