Rare Earth Elements In Egyptian Granite By Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis

The mobilization of rare earth elements (REEs) in the environment requires monitoring of these elements in environmental matrices, in which they are mainly present at trace levels. The similarity in (REEs) chemical behavior makes the separate determination of each element by chemical methods difficult; instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA), based on nuclear properties of the elements to be determined, is a method of choice in trace analysis of (REEs) and related elements. Therefore, (INAA) was applied as a sensitive nondestructive analytical tool for the determination of rare earth elements to find out what information could be obtained about the (REEs) of some Egyptian granite collected from four locations in Aswan area in south Egypt as follows wadi EI-Allaqi, EI-Shelal, Gabel Ibrahim Pacha and from Sehyel Island and to estimate the accuracy, reproducibility and detection limit of NAA method in case of the given samples. The samples were properly prepared together with standards and simultaneously irradiated in a neutron flux of 7 x 1011n/cm2.s in the TRIGA Mainz research reactor facilities. The following elements have been determined: La, Ce, Nd, Sm, Eu, Yb and Lu. The gamma spectra was collected by HPGe detector and the analysis was done by means of computerized multichannel analyzer. The X-ray fluorescence XRF was also used