Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopic detection of trace level heavy metal in solutions on a laser-pretreated metallic target.

Journal: Talanta
Published Date:

Abstract

A fast and sensitive analysis for trace level heavy metals in aqueous solution was realized by using an improved laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) methodology. Solutions containing heavy metal elements, Ni, Cr, and Cd, were concentrated in a laser-pretreated area (25 × 20mm) of a polished aluminum target surface, wherein pretreated grooves enabled homogeneous distribution of the metallic solutions in the well-defined area, and laser ablation of the aluminum target produced unique plasma excitation of various metallic ions. For 1-mL solutions deposited, we obtained an analytical precision of about 7% relative standard deviation (RSD), and limits of detection (LODs) of 22, 19, and 184μg/L for Ni, Cr, and Cd, respectively. Moreover, the laser-pretreated metallic microstructure allowed more solution deposited with the help of a hot plate, which supported improvement of LODs to sub-μg/L level for Cr and Ni and μg/L level for Cd with about 20-mL solution engaged in the enrichment processes. The applicability of the proposed methodology was validated on certified reference materials and real river water.

Authors

  • Sheng Niu
    State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, PR China.
  • Lijuan Zheng
    State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, PR China. Electronic address: ljzheng@phy.ecnu.edu.cn.
  • Abdul Qayyum Khan
    State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, PR China.
  • Guang Feng
    State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, PR China.
  • Heping Zeng
    State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, PR China. Electronic address: hpzeng@phy.ecnu.edu.cn.

Keywords

No keywords available for this article.