Measurement of Light Rare Earth element of Samarium in the Processing of Mineral Concentrate Samples by HLLME Pre-concentration Method and ICP-MS

Abstract: In this study, a method based on flotation assistance of homogeneous liquid-liquid microextraction (FA-HLLME) combined with inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS) was proposed for the measurement of trace Samarium in Mineral concentrate samples. As one of the miniaturized separation and extraction techniques, homogenous liquid-liquid microextraction (HLLME) has been widely applied in the field of Mineral processing. PAN (1-(2-Pyridylazo)-2-naphthol) was used as the complexing agent and 1-Dodecanol and Acetone were selected as extraction and homogeneous solvents, respectively. The factors that influenced the extraction efficiency for Samarium measurement (including pH, extraction, and homogeneous solvents, the concentration of PAN and NaCl, extraction time) were studied statistically. Under the optimum conditions (pH=8.0, 140µL 1-Dodecanol, 1.2 mL Tetrahydrofuran, 3.045×10-4 mol L-1PAN, 2.5mol L-1 NaCl, and 120 sec of extraction time), the linear dynamic range for Samarium determination was 10.0 - 220.0 ng L-1 (R2=0.9862) with a limit of detection (LOD) for Samarium was 2.91 ng L-1. The relative standard deviation (R.S.D.) (C=40 ng L-1, n=7) was 2.1% and the enrichment factor of 250 for Samarium extraction. The proposed method was successfully applied to the measurement of Samarium in different Mineral concentrate samples.