The demand for rare earth elements has increased substantially and are being utilised in a range of new technologies and are increasing in importance due to the clean energy economy and the risk of supply disruption.
Intertek has an extensive experience analyzing for these elements and offers a number of Total Quality Assurance analytical packages suitable for rare earth elements, high field strength elements, major elements, trace elements and naturally-occurring radioactive elements with which rare earths are commonly associated.
Rare earth analysis support:
- Grassroots exploration
- Resource estimation
- Advanced projects
- Metallurgical products
- Lithogeochemical applications
Rare earths analysis can be performed on different media such as soils, rocks and vegetation using aqua regia, four acid digests or fusion digests with ICP-MS finish. Light rare earths may be quantitatively recovered in aqua regia or four acids digests whereas minerals hosting heavy rare earths may require a more aggressive fusion digest for complete dissolution. Aqua regia is useful technique for grassroots exploration and identification of geochemical anomalies. Fusion digests using lithium borate or sodium peroxide are ideally suited for complete recovery of all rare earths elements.