Development of Ultra-Trace Analysis for Specific Actinides and Lanthanides in Some Ores and Sea Water samples Using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) Technique

Abstract

The Rare Earth Elements (REEs) are relatively abundant in the earth's crust, but discovered economic concentrations are less common than for most other ores. They consist of a coherent group of elements (lantha-nide series) with similar chemical properties. They play an important role in various fields ranging from geology to electronics, which demand their determination from percentage to ultra-trace levels. The naturally existing actinides or radio nuclides like Uranium (238U) and Thorium (232Th) are present everywhere in the Earth's crust. The Egyptian black sands along the Mediterranean coast consist of massive assets of several common economic minerals. This study consists of three chapters:- Chapter 1 : Introduction This chapter includes introduction, aim of the work, an overview of pre-vious researches for REEs, U, Th and the isotopic ratios of U / Th. Chapter 2 : Experimental Work This chapter contains the chemicals, methods and applied measure-ment techniques as follow: 1) The chemicals, Calibration standards and its concentrations. 2) Methods of digestion for black Sand samples. 3) Chemical treatment for sea water samples 4) Chemical treatment for phosphate samples. 5) Instrumental set up and calibration of ICP-MS.