Determination of some rare earth elements in seawater by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry using flow injection preconcentration

Abstract An on-line Eu, Tb, Ho, Tm and Lu preconcentration and determination system implemented with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) associated to a flow injection (FI) method was studied. Quinolin-8-ol and Amberlite XAD-7 were used for the retention of Eu, Tb, Ho, Tm and Lu, at pH 10.0. The rare earth elements were re-extracted from the microcolumn with nitric acid. The values of detection limits (DL) obtained for the preconcentration of 100 ml of aqueous solution of Eu, Tb, Ho, Tm and Lu were 0.016, 0.0023, 0.0017, 0.0035 and 0.0015 pg ml −1 , respectively, with a relative standard deviation (RSD) of about 2.0%. The calibration graphs obtained by using the preconcentration system for Eu, Tb, Ho, Tm and Lu were linear at levels near the detection limits up to at least 1 ng ml −1 . The method was succesfully applied to the determination of Eu, Tb, Ho, Tm and Lu in seawater samples.