Determination of lanthanum by flame atomic emission spectrometry in rare earth concentrates

Abstract

A flame atomic emission technique has been used for the determination of lanthanum, using a dinitrogen oxide–acetylene flame and a baseline method for background correction, by scanning the atomic emission spectra in the region 441.2–442.2 nm. The concentration of lanthanum is calculated from the peak height of the LaO band at 441.8 nm. Depression of the atomic emission signal for lanthanum caused by interfering ions is eliminated using ammonium chloride solution. The relative standard deviations vary from 1.1 to 2.8%. The proposed method has been applied to synthetic mixtures and rare earth concentrates.