Chemical analysis of uranium and titanium niobotantalate metamict minerals by ion-exchange chromatography and spectrophotometric procedures

An ion-exchange separation followed by spectrophotometric determinations is applied to some metamict minerals. These minerals, containing very high amounts of elements which present some problems to the analyst, such as uranium, titanium, niobium and rare-earth elements, are fused with potassium bisulphate, and the cooled melts dissolved in sulphuric acid. The solutions are passed through a series of three ion-exchange columns to separate those mineral-forming elements for which the colorimetric procedures suffer interference from the elements listed above. The procedure has been tested with a synthetic solution and with solutions of the minerals. (author)