Determination of 8 Rare Earth Elements in Hot Spring Deposits

Accurate determination of rare earth elements(REEs) in hot spring deposits is important for the study of REE ore genesis and magmatic activity. The samples are digested by HNO₃ +HF+HClO₄ +H₂SO₄, and the 8 rare earth elements are extracted by aqua regia. The elements were directly determined by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. It was verified by the national standard material GBW07328, the results were consistent with the true values, and several samples from Xizang were measured. The results indicate that the detection limit for rare earth elements ranges from 0.01 μg/g to 0.10 μg/g, the method precision (<italic>RSD</italic>, <italic>n</italic> =11) was between 2.95% and 7.12%, and the recovery rate of spiked samples ranged from 94.27% to 108.60%. The advantages of the method are high accuracy, rapidity, simultaneous detection of multiple elements, it is suitable for the detection of rare earth elements in hot spring sediments.