Determination of Aluminum Oxide in Rare Earth Ore by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry

The element Al is determined frequently in rare earth ore since Al is a common impurity element in this ore. At present, the Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometric (ICP-AES) method, which has certain requirements of the Al blank and the matrix concentration, is used to determine the content of Al in ore with a matrix matching calibration. Because Al has complicated patterns in many kinds of rare earth ores, it is difficult to dissolve Al completely into solution for determination by a routine acid-leaching method. In this paper, a new method is described, whereby the sample is digested by alkali fusion and the filtrate acidulated before the content Al in rare earth ore is determined by ICP-AES. The effect of spectrum interferences of REEs and Th on the Al was studied. The detection limit was reduced effectively by eliminating the interferences of coexisting elements. The matrix correction mode was undertaken to eliminate the salt influence. The determination limit of the method was from 0.021 mg/g to 0.035 mg/g and the determination content range was from 0.50 % to 8.00%. The RSD was less than 7.1%. The result of the samples with the presented method is consistent with the volumetric method. The method is fast with a wide measuring range and extremely high precision.