Simultaneous determination of La, Ce, Pr, and Nd elements in aqueous solution using surface-enhanced laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

Determination of rare earth elements (REEs) plays an important role in the extraction process. In this work, surface-enhanced laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (SENLIBS) was introduced to detect REEs (lanthanum, cerium，praseodymium，and neodymium elements) in an aqueous solution. The emission lines of La II 394.91nm, Ce II 418.66nm, Pr II 422.29nm, and Nd II 406.10nm were selected for quantitative analysis by drying the analytical samples on a Zn metal substrate surface and optimizing the experimental parameters. The results showed that the limits of detection (LoDs) for determining La, Ce, Pr, and Nd elements can reach to 0.85, 4.07, 2.97, and 10.98μgmL^-1, respectively, which proved that SENLIBS is a feasible method for determining REEs.