DETERMINATION OF 15 TRACE RARE EARTH ELEMENTS IN HIGH PURITY SCANDIUM OXIDE BY HORIZONTAL ICP/AES AFTER SEPARATION WITH CHROMATOGRAPHY

An analytical method to determine 15 rare earth elements in high purity scandium oxide has been developed. In the method, the rare earth elements were separated from scandium and other impurity elements of non-rare earth by chromatographic and cation exchange procedure in which the CL-TBP levextrel resin is as fixed phase and the 9 mol ?L1 HC1 is used as eluent. After separation, the rare earth elements were determined by horizontal ICP/AES. For the 0. 3 g sampling, it can analyze the Sc2O3 with purity of 99. 99996% and total rare earth impurities of 0. Slug ?g~1(Ce, Pr and Nd are 0. 05; Eu, Dy and Yb are 0. 0033; the others are 0. 017^g ?g1). The recovery is from 85% to 110% and the relative standard deviation is less than 9%. The analytical results of 15 rare earth elements for two Sc2Oa samples determined by this method are in good agreement with other analytical methods.