A New Method for Determination of Rare Earth Elements Vaporized in Graphite Furnace with a Polytetrafluoroethylene Slurry Fluorinating Reagent by Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry

Abstract

A new method based on fluorinating vaporization from a graphite furnace for ICP-AES by using a polytetrafluoroethylene slurry as a fluorinating reagent has been established to determine rare earth elements which are easily formed into refractory carbides. The detection limits were within the range 10^-10 to 10^-12g, and were typically two orders of magnitude better than that obtained with conventional electrothermal vaporization (ETV)-ICP-AES. No memory effect was observed. The relative standard deviation was better than 5%. Some factors which affected fluorinating vaporization are also discussed. It is concluded that ETV-ICP-AES is superior to GFAAS when the carbide-forming elements are determined.