The determination of uranium in rocks by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry

A method for the determination of uranium in rock samples by emission spectrometry is presented. The rock is dissolved and the uranium content determined by nebulizing the solution into an inductively coupled-plasma optical excitation source. Various spectral lines were investigated. The uranium emission at 378.28 nm -was chosen because of its relative freedom from matrix element spectral interferences. For this emission, a practical detection limit of 0.1 p.p.m. in solution was achieved by optimizing source parameters (power, flow-rate, observation height). Results are compared with those obtained by a number of other techniques.