A study on the separation and determination of the rare earth Elements by the AG ® 50W-X8 cation exchange resin

Methods to separate 14 rare earth elements (REEs) and yttrium by the 50W-X8 cation exchange resin, and to determine REEs by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrophotometry (ICP-AES) were described. Ion exchange capacities of REEs on the resin were so high that the REEs were quantitatively ion exchanged under the flow rate of 0.3~1.0 mL/min at pH 1~6. The breakthrough capacity curve of the REEs showed that ion exchange capacities of light REEs (Cerium group) were greater than that of the heavy REEs (Yttrium group). When of each REEs was ion exchanged on 100 mg of resin, most of the heavy REEs were quantitatively desorbed with 10 mL of 2.0 M of , while most of the light REEs with 30 mL. The method was applied to the monazite sample. The REEs could be separated from matrix, since ion exchange capacities of matrix ions of Ca, Ti, Mg, Mn were much lower than that of the REEs. However the relative standard deviations of the analytical results by the present method were not improved, as high as 1~5%.