Characterization of rare earth elements by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is an emerging in situ analytical technique for material characterization. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of various rare earth elements (REEs) in three different types of samples by LIBS is demonstrated. Firstly, analysis of six rare earth elements [cerium (Ce), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), neodymium (Nd), samarium (Sm), and yttrium (Y)] have been performed using standard samples. Natural geological samples with low concentration of REEs were used for the LIBS study in the second part. Low and high intensity spectral signals of Ce, La, Nd, Y, Pr, Sm, Eu, Gd, and Dy were detected and multivariate analysis was executed by developing partial least squares regression (PLS-R) models for the quantification of Ce, La, and Nd. After studying REEs in standard and natural geological samples in powder form, two rare earth elements (Eu and Yb) in aqueous solutions were studied at ambient and high-pressure conditions.