Determination of antimony in soil using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy assisted with laser-induced fluorescence

Antimony (Sb) in soil is attracting attention in the research community due to its potential toxicity and carcinogenicity. Traditional methods of detecting Sb lack the ability of rapid and nondigestion analysis, which hinders their development and application. Moreover, it is still a challenge for laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) to detect Sb in soil due to the weak intensities and intense interference of spectral lines. Here, LIBS, assisted with laser-induced fluorescence (LIBS-LIF), was used to selectively enhance the Sb's characteristic spectral lines under optimal parameters. The quantitative analysis performance was notably improved with a determination coefficient (R-2) of 0.991, the limit of detection of 0.221 mu g/g, and root mean square error of cross validation of 3.592 mu g/g. These results demonstrate that LIBS-LIF has the potential to realize the rapid and accurate analysis of Sb in soil. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America