Characterisation of high purity rare-earth oxides by x-ray fluorescence methods

X-ray fluorescence methods for the determination of individual rare earth impurities in high purity rare earth oxidesviz., Y₂O₃, La₂O₃, CeO₂, Pr₆O₁₁, Nd₂O₃, Sm₂O₃, Eu₂O₃, Gd₂O₃, Tb₄O₇, Dy₂O₃, Ho₂O₃ and Er₂O₃ have been developed in our laboratory. The samples are converted to oxalate form and double-layer pellets are prepared using boric acid as binding material. A semiautomatic x-ray spectrometer is used for the analyses. Choice of instrumental parameters and analysis lines is discussed. The determination range varies from 0.005% to 1.0% for most elements with good precision and adequate accuracy.