Simultaneous Determination of Trace Elements in Tungsten Ore and Molybdenum Ore with Open Acid Digestion by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry

Tungsten and molybdenum ores have abundant paragenesis or associated elements. Detection of these elements is beneficial to the comprehensive utilization of mineral resources. At present, the contents of these elements are detected respectively by the national standard method of tungsten ore and molybdenum ore, which has a low efficiency. A method for the determination of trace elements in tungsten ore and molybdenum ore by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry (ICP-AES) is proposed. Tungsten ore and molybdenum ore samples were dissolved by HCl-HNO₃-HF-HClO₄ at normal pressure and extracted by hydrochloric acid (7% of HCl). The 10 trace elements of Bi, Co, Cu, Li, Ni, P, Pb, Sr, V and Zn were simultaneously measured by ICP-AES. Analytical wavelength and spectral level of elements were selected. The background interferences were eliminated with an off-peak background correction method，and the spectral overlapping interferences between elements were eliminated using an interference elements correction coefficients method．The detection limits were 1.43-18.8 μg/g and the recovery rates were 90%-110%. This method has been applied to the determination of tungsten ore and molybdenum ore national certified reference materials, and the results were in good agreement with the certified values with RSD (n=10) 1ess than 8%. The method avoided the influence of adding a large amount of alkali metal elements and probably foreign matter with alkali fusion, without precipitation processing of tungstic acid and molybdic acid. It can be used to rapidly determine paragenesis or associated elements in tungsten ore and molybdenum ore.