Abstract

Heavy metals produce serious environmental pollution and cause actual harm to the health of people. It is necessary to control the pollution and achieve a real time and online monitoring. Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a new elemental analysis technique, and has the advantage of rapid, in situ detection. An LIBS experimental setup has been established. The Nd:YAG laser beam is focused onto the sample surface, then the plasmas are produced. The emission spectra of plasmas are collected by an Echelle spectrograph and detected by a charge coupled device (CCD). Experiments have been carried out on the fishpond water collected from the scene. The spectral lines of Cu element were obtained. The calibration curve of the line intensities versus the concentrations of the Cu element was acquired by the experiment. The calibration curve can be used for the quantitative analysis of Cu element with an unknown concentration in the water solution. The results showed that the LIBS technique can be applied in the rapid detection of Cu element in the water solution, and has wide range of applications.

© 2012 Optical Society of America