Determination of rare earth elements in mineral waters by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry

A procedure for selective preconcentration of all rare earth elements (REE) in mineral waters on a Dowex cation exchanger has been developed. The precision and accuracy of the procedure were checked on a synthetic standard solution, as well as on real samples using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES). The efficiency of the preconcentration procedure was checked by recovery tests and the reliability of the ICP-AES determination of REE established by comparing the results obtained with those from spectrophotometric analysis.