The determination of stable scandium in plants,animals, sediments,sands, soils,rocks and minerals by neutron-activation analysis

A method is described for the determination of stable scandium in samples of plants, animals, sediments, soils, rocks and minerals. The samples and comparator standards were irradiated in a neutron flux of 5·10¹² n/cm²/sec for 4 h and dissolved and the scandium quantitatively precipitated from 2N nitric acid as scandium phytate; contaminants were rinsed from the precipitate with nitric and hydrochloric acids. The limit of detection was 0.005μg(±10% at the 95% confidence level). The activated ⁴⁶Sc was counted by γ-spectrometry.