Determination of major, minor and trace metallic constituents in sillimanite: Comparative evaluation of edxrf and d. c. arc carrier distillation aes

Abstract

An attempt was made to determine the major, minor and trace levels of common metallic constituents in sillimanite minerals. Direct current arc atomic emission spectrometry (D. C. Arc AES) and energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (EDXRF) were used for the comparative evaluation. Al and Si were found to be present as major matrix elements, whereas Na, Pb, Tb, Mn, V, Ti, Ca, Mo, Ba, Y, Ni and Nb were present in the range of 20-900 μg g-1. The methodologies were developed by using standards made with a mixture of SiO2 and Al2O3 in (1:1) concentration. Multipoint standardization was carried out to establish the calibration curves for each analyte. The methodologies were validated using synthetic samples. The statistical t-test was performed in order to understand the reliability of the data obtained by EDXRF and D. C. Arc AES with a 95 % confidence limit and 8 degrees of freedom. The F-test was also performed to understand the variance of the measurements.