Sensitive analysis of fluorine and chlorine elements in water solution using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy assisted with molecular synthesis

Zhiyang Tang; Zhongqi Hao; Ran Zhou; Qingzhou Li; Kun Liu; Wen Zhang; Jiujiang Yan; Kaiwen Wei; Xiangyou Li

doi:10.1016/j.talanta.2020.121784

Sensitive analysis of fluorine and chlorine elements in water solution using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy assisted with molecular synthesis

Talanta. 2021 Mar 1:224:121784. doi: 10.1016/j.talanta.2020.121784. Epub 2020 Oct 28.

Authors

Zhiyang Tang¹, Zhongqi Hao², Ran Zhou¹, Qingzhou Li¹, Kun Liu¹, Wen Zhang¹, Jiujiang Yan¹, Kaiwen Wei³, Xiangyou Li¹

Affiliations

¹ Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics (WNLO), HuaZhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, 430074, PR China.
² Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics (WNLO), HuaZhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, 430074, PR China; School of Measuring and Optical Engineering, Nanchang Hangkong University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, 330063, PR China.
³ Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics (WNLO), HuaZhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, 430074, PR China. Electronic address: laser_wei@hust.edu.cn.

PMID: 33379013
DOI: 10.1016/j.talanta.2020.121784

Abstract

Fluorine and chlorine are key elements to affecting water quality, but they are hard to be determined by conventional laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). To achieve high sensitivity detection of them, the CaF and CaCl molecules were synthesized by combining calcium in calcite and F and Cl in sample. The temporal characteristics of CaF and CaCl molecular emissions were investigated. It shows that molecular emission of CaF and CaCl has a longer lifetime and high spectral intensity than that of their atomic emissions. Such unique feature of molecular emission inspired us to use it for high sensitivity analysis of Cl and F elements in water. The results show that these two elements can be sensitively and accurately detected using LIBS assisted with molecular emission. The limits of detections (LoDs) were 0.38 mg/L and 1.03 mg/L for F and Cl elements, respectively, and the limit of quantitation (LoQ) was 3.404 mg/L to 20.569 mg/L for fluorine elements and 9.986 mg/L to 39.757 mg/L for fluorine. These detection limits can meet the World Health Organization's detection requirements for F and Cl elements in water. The results show that LIBS assisted with molecular synthesis has a huge potential in water quality monitoring.

Keywords: Chlorine; Fluorine; LIBS; Molecular systhesis.