scope:

The use of this document may involve hazardous chemicals, materials, operations and equipment. This document does not purport to address any safety problems associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this document to establish appropriate safety and health practices and to determine the applicability of regulatory limitations before use (see Reference [8] and [9]).

This document describes procedures for the determination of non-rare earth impurities in individual rare earth metals and their oxides through the use of inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). The impurity elements to be analysed as typical non-rare earth impurities are the following five elements: Magnesium (Mg), Aluminum (Al), Silicon (Si), Calcium (Ca) and Iron (Fe). The specified measurement ranges for these impurities are shown in Table 1. An instrument capable of the achieving the below ranges is required for this determination.

NOTE 1 The lower limits of measurement range shall be above the limits of quantification (LOQ) for each impurity element.

NOTE 2 This standard provides appropriate sample preparation method and a calculation procedure of the calibration curve for the applicable measurement range shown above.