[en] A spectral fitting method is described to analyze the ICP-AE spectrum of a crude rare-earth chloride obtained from a monazite ore. Each window for a rare-earth element (width, 1 nm; 400 data) was successively analyzed using some developed software. The linear additivity of observed reference spectra of rare-earth elements in a spectrum database was assumed to synthesize a simulated spectrum, and differences between the simulated spectrum and an observed spectrum were minimized by a least-squares method which varies linear coefficients. Consequently, determined rare-earth elements (mass% of total rare-earth) were Y(0.42%), La(23.7%), Ce(45.5%), Pr(5.38%), Nd(19.8%), Sm(3.60%), Eu(0.011%), Gd(1.17%), Tb(0.077%), Dy(0.26%), Ho(0.032%), Er(0.029%) and Yb(0.005%). Tm and Lu could not be determined due to weak line intensities. It took less than 2 min to analyze each window, when a personal computer equipped with an 80486 CPU was used. The obtained analytical results agreed well with those obtained by isotachophoresis-particle induced X-ray emission, confirming the utility of this method for such samples with heavy spectrum interference. (author)

[en] Inductively-coupled plasma-atomic emission (ICP-AE) spectral fitting analysis was applied to the determination of rare-earth elements (REEs) in ion-adsorption type ores. An analytical window for each REE with strong emission (1nm) was simulated based on a linear combination of reference spectra of REEs using our own developed software. The analytical results obtained were in good agreement with those obtained by a coupled analytical method, i.e. isotachophoresis-particle induced X-ray emission (ITP-PIXE)