Direct determination of rare earth impurities in high purity europium oxide by ICP-MS

A novel inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry method for direct determination of trace rare earth impurities in high purity europium oxide (Eu2O3) was developed. The spectral interference, matrix effect, instrument parameters fluctuation were investigated and the optimized experimental conditions were established. Under the selected conditions, the detection limits of the method are 3 similar to 7 ng.L-1, the RSD is varied between 2.1% similar to 8.4% and the percentage recovery is ranged from 90% to 113% for the analytes. The solid detection limit for gross amount of 13 rare earth impurities is 0.19 mug . g(-1) when the matrix ( Eu) concentration of 0.1 mg . ml(-1) was chosen. Compared with the reported methods in the literature, this method has several attractive features: simple, small sample amount required, no internal standard and matrix matching requirements.