Spectrophotometric determination of rare earth elements by flow injection analysis based on their reaction with xylenol orange and cetylpyridinium bromide

Individual rare earth elements (REE) and their mixtures were determined by a FIA method based on the reaction with Xylenol Orange (XO) in the presence of cetylpyridinium bromide (CPB). Volumes of 30 microl of 2.5-25 microM REE solutions were injected into a carrier stream of 0.1M acetate buffer of pH 4.5 or 5.5 that was 0.06 mM in XO and 0.6 mM in CPB. At 1.8 ml/min flow rate, a sampling frequency of up to 100 samples per hour was achieved. The detection limits were in the range of 0.1-0.4 microg/ml REE and relative standard deviation of the measurement was 0.88% rel.