The determination of rare earth elements in seawater is a challenge due to high salt content of seawater and extremely low concentrations of rare earth elements. Therefore separation of matrix and preconcentration of rare earth elements is necessary for their detection by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. Polyhydroxamic acid is a potential chelating resin for separation and preconcentration of many elements. In the present work polyhydroxamic acid synthesized from acryl amide as monomer and N,N'-methylene bis acryl amide as cross linker was used in a self fabricated glass cartridge for the preconcentration of La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd,Tb. Dy, Ho, Er, Tin, Yb and Lu simultaneously from seawater. Polyhydroxamic acid was found to have good selectivity for rare earth elements with respect to alkali and alkaline earth metals. Therefore major matrix elements such as Na, K and Mg were separated in a single stage with the achievement of a preconcentration factor of 100 for rare earth elements. The uptake of rare earth elements by PHA was >95% in a wide pH range of 3-7. The limit of detection as calculated by taking synthetic seawater was between 0.08 to 0.44 ng L(-1). (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.