MATRIX CONVERSION; QUANTITATIVE-ANALYSIS; AQUEOUS-SOLUTIONS; METAL DETECTION; HEAVY-METALS; SPECTROMETRY; LIBS; MICROEXTRACTION; PLASMA; MEMBRANE

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a simple, fast, and direct technique for the elemental analysis of various samples. However, the practical application of this method in direct liquid analysis is limited due to its inherent disadvantages including surface ripples and extinction of emitted intensity. Applicable treatments of liquids always involve complicated procedures or additional instruments, which is disadvantageous to its analytical performance. In this study, we proposed a novel method for the LIBS analysis of liquid samples via a hydrogel-based solidification technique. In this new method, aqueous solution is directly poured into sodium polyacrylate resins. Owing to the high hydroscopicity of sodium polyacrylate resins, the resins quickly form a hydrogel and immediately solidify the liquid samples. After this, the LIBS analysis is directly performed. To estimate the analytical performance of this proposed method, calibration curves were established and limits of detection for Al, Cu, and Cr were obtained. The limits of detection (CODs) for the emission lines of Al(I) 308.21 nm, Cu(I) 324.75 nm, and Cr(I) 425.43 nm were 0.460 mu g mL(-1), 4.69 mu g mL(-1), and 4.44 mu g mL(-1), respectively. According to the obtained results, this proposed method demonstrates its better analytical performance in terms of CODs at the ppm level and requires shorter processing time as compared to other analytical methods based on the LIBS technique for liquid sample analysis. Especially, the short pretreatment of samples and simple auxiliary equipment make this hydrogel-based solidification method bring LIBS out of the laboratory for the direct analysis of environmental liquid samples. The feasibility and potential of this novel method have also been discussed for special analytical applications in slurry samples.

TRACE-METAL ANALYSIS; AQUEOUS-SOLUTION; MATRIX CONVERSION; HEAVY-METALS; LIBS; MEMBRANE; WATER; SPECTROMETRY; DEPOSITION; ADSORBENT

A highly concentrated, ring-shaped phase conversion (RSPC) method was developed for liquid sample analysis using the laser-induced breakdownspectroscopy (LIBS) technique. In this work, test samples were prepared by mixing the metal particles with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) supporter in liquid phase. With heat, the PVA solution solidified inside a modified glass petri dish, forming a metal-enriched polymer ring film. Distinguished from other traditional liquid-to-solid conversing methods, the proposed new method takes advantage of enhanced homogeneity for the target elements inside the ring film. The modified glass petri dish was used to control the ring-shaped concentration. Due to the specially designed circular groove at the bottom of this dish, where the PVA solution and liquid sample mixture accumulated, the target elements were concentrated in this small ring, which is beneficial for enhancing and stabilizing the plasma signals compared to the direct liquid sample analysis using LIBS. The limits of detection for Ag, Cu, Cr, and Ba obtained with the RSPC-LIBS technology were 0.098 mu g . mL(-1), 0.18 mu g . mL(-1), 0.83 mu g . mL(-1), and 0.046 mu g . mL(-1), respectively, which provided greater improvement than the direct bulk liquid analysis using LIBS. (C) 2017 Optical Society of America