Spectrographic Determination of Trace Amounts of Rare Earths. II. Analysis of Lanthanum, Yttrium, Europium, Prasedymium, Neodymium, and Samarium by the Carrier Distillation Method

A method for the spectrographic determination of trace amounts of Eu, La, Y, Nd, Pr, and Sm in the 5 N HCl solution has been developed. The solution is evaporated on graphite powder and excited in the craters of graphite electrodes in a dc arc using the carrier distillation method CsF is used as the carrier. Excitation is made in the special atmosphere of 80% oxygen and 20% argon. For Y and La, the range of determination is from 0.25 to 10 μg/ml and for Eu, Nd, Pr, and Sm the range is from 0 5 to 20 μ g/ml. The average coefficient of variation amounts to ± 10%. It has been found that in the investigated concentration range the influence of some rare earth elements on excitation of the others is negligible This method can be applied also to the analysis of other rare earth elements