Quantification of trace amounts of rare earth elements in high purity gadolinium oxide by sector field inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS)

Abstract

In recent years, rare earth elements (REEs) have received much attention in the fields of geochemistry and industry. Gadolinium oxide is used for many different high technology applications such as infrared absorbing automotive glass, petroleum cracking catalyst, gadolinium–yttrium garnets, microwave applications, and color TV tube phosphors. It can also be used in optical glass manufacturing and in the electronic industry. Rapid and accurate determinations of the rare earth elements are increasingly required as industrial demands expand. In general, the inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) presents some advantages for trace element analysis, due to high sensitivity and resolution, when compared with other analytical techniques. In this work, sector field inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry was used. Sixteen elements (Sc, Y, and 14 lanthanides) were determined selectively with the ICP-MS system using a concentration gradient method. The detection limits with the ICP-MS system were about 0.2–8 pg ml −1. The recovery percentage ranged from 95 to 100% for different rare earth elements. The %R.S.D. of the methods varying between 1.5 and 2.5% for a set of five ( n=5) replicates was found for the IPEN’s material and for the certificate reference sample. Determination of trace REEs in two high pure gadolinium oxides samples (IPEN and JMC) was performed. IPEN’s material is highly pure (>99.99%) and was successfully analyzed without spectral interference.