Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy; Instrument; Review;IN-SITU ANALYSIS; INDUCED PLASMA; QUANTITATIVE-ANALYSIS; MICROCHIP-LASER; SPECTROCHEMICAL ANALYSIS; GEOLOGICAL SAMPLES; RAMAN-SPECTROSCOPY; MATRIX CONVERSION; RAPID DETECTION; LIBS SYSTEM

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) has become a very attractive technique in the field of chemical analysis. The technique utilizes a laser focused on a small spot to create a micro-plasma on the sample surface. In recent years, LIBS is a frontier analysis technique in spectrometric analysis, with the advantages such as real-time, online and non-contact analysis. The research and development of various instruments based on this technology has attracted great attention of analysts. In this article, we reviewed the research progress of LIBS instrument from aspects of the components and field equipment in recent years, including portable LIBS, handheld LIBS and remote LIBS.

Laser induced plasma; Spectral line profile; Continuum intensity; Full width at half maximum (FWHM); Spectral line shift;INDUCED BREAKDOWN SPECTROSCOPY; INDUCED PLASMA DYNAMICS; ABLATION

There are many methods to characterize plasma parameters for laser-induced plasma, optical emission spectra method is a very important one to diagnose laser-induced plasma parameters. In this paper, Nd:YAG solid state laser which output 1064 nm wavelength interact with aluminum alloy sample, the temporal evolution of spectral line profile, spectral line intensity, continuum intensity, line to background intensity ratio, spectral line broadening and spectral line shift were investigated in detail for laser induced aluminum alloy plasma. The results show that the interaction of electrons between atoms and ions are very intense, which leads to electrons production of laser induced plasma at the early stage. Stark broadening effect of spectra lines are distinct and multiple spectral lines are overlapped. With temporal evolution, the electron density and electron temperature decreased quickly, the multiple spectral lines are separated slowly, and the spectral line profile is becoming thinner and symmetric. For Mg I 285.2126 nm characteristic spectral line, the intensity increased with temporal evolution at first, the intensity reached maximum value about 100 ns, and then the intensity decreased with temporal evolution, which is due to the fact that electron and ion are dominated at early stage of laser-induced plasma, atomic spectral line is very weak, with temporal evolution, the process of recombination between electrons dominated and the atomic number density increased, when the atomic number density reached maximum value, the spectral line intensity decreased with temporal evolution because excitation temperature decreased quickly. Taking wavelength in NIST database as reference wavelength, the spectral line shift for Mg I 285.212 7 nm and Zn II 206.200 4 nm take place red shift at early stage of laser induced plasma, the continuum intensity decreased dramatically by power law with temporal evolution, on the contrary, comparing with continuum intensity and spectral line intensity, continuum intensity attenuate sharply, the line to background intensity ratio increase with temporal evolution. This early phenomenon of laser inducedaluminum alloy plasma were discussed in detail from theoretical perspective.

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

INDUCED BREAKDOWN SPECTROSCOPY; TRANSFORM; IDENTIFICATION; CALIBRATION; SIGNALS; ALLOYS

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is becoming a rapid and easy technique for quantitative elemental analysis. However, the implementation of accurate quantitative LIBS analysis is always subject to noise interference. In this work, in order to improve LIBS analysis performance for trace elements in aluminium alloys, a modified trade-off soft and hard threshold method is proposed based on the wavelet theory, where optimal parameters are deduced to eliminate noise interference. By using the modified algorithm combined with an Al I line at 308.215 nm as an internal standard, the statistical parameters including the determination coefficient (R-2), the root mean square error (RMSE) and the relative standard deviation (RSD) of magnesium (Mg), manganese (Mn) and cuprum (Cu) in aluminium alloys are all significantly improved. The most significant improvement of R-2 is 0.066 for Cu. The maximum RMSE reduction value is 0.583 for Mg, and the mean value of RMSE reduction is 0.261 for all three trace elements. And after de-noising, the value of RSD gets smaller for each trace element. Such results indicate that the optimized algorithm is valid for the effective improvement of the accuracy of quantitative LIBS analysis in the trace element determination of aluminium alloys.

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy; miniature laser; nickel ore;QUANTITATIVE-ANALYSIS; INDUCED PLASMA; LIBS; DISCRIMINATION; CONFIGURATION; STEEL; SOIL; CU

A newly designed and developed bench-top instrument is reported for laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy offering compact size and relatively low cost. A miniature laser was designed in the laboratory with a small volume and a light weight. The spectrometer was controlled using laboratory-written software. The instrument is suitable for the direct and rapid analysis of solid samples after simple pretreatment. Good stability and accuracy were achieved for quantitative analysis. The performance of the instrument was evaluated by qualitative and quantitative analyses of nickel ore for Mn, Al, Fe, Cr, Zn, Mg, Si, and Ca. The quantitative analysis showed linear calibration graphs and small relative standard deviations. The results show that the new instrument is suitable for elemental analysis.