ABSTRACT
A method for the determination of impurities in high pure Nd_2O_3 employing inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry(ICP-MS) was established, and emphasise was put on the elimination of matrix induced NdO~+ and NdOH~+ spectral interferences using cell collision technology(CCT). Using 10% O_2-10% Ar-80% He as the reaction/collision gas and with proper adjustment of the instrumental parameters, ~(159)Tb,~(165)Ho,~(163)Dy could be quantified at ~(175)TbO,~(179)DyO and ~(181)HoO respectively, while the matrix induced NdO~+ and NdOH~+ spectral interferences could be reduced by 25-70 folds. In addition, different elements were tested as internal standards for matrix effect correction under the CCT mode, and it was found that Re was best. Other impurities including La, Ce, Sm, Eu, Gd, Er, Tm, Yb and Lu were detected under conventional mode, except that Pr was detected under high instrumental resolution mode to eliminate peak tailing interference from Nd. In combination with mathematic correction, the established method can be applied for the determination of impurities in 99.999% Nd_2O_3 products with satisfactory RSDs and recoveries.