Determination of microamounts of hafnium in zirconium using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry during their separation by ion exchange on diphonix chelating resin

Inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS) methods were applied to check the possibility of determination of hafnium in zirconium at a level lower than 100 ppm. A zirconium matrix of hafnium content lower than 10 ppm was obtained using a workedout separation method exploiting ion exchange on Diphonix resin. Both methods give results in good agreement with each other as well as with those for certified reference material BCR-098 (Zircaloy-4). They were utilized in determination of Hf in the samples collected during separation of microamounts of hafnium from zirconium by the mentioned ion exchange. These results proved the earlier described method of separation on Diphonix resin to be effective even when the initial concentration of hafnium in zirconium decreases from 2.4% to 0.0082%.