Sulfur detection in soil by laser induced breakdown spectroscopy assisted by multivariate analysis

Abstract

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is used for the detection and determination of sulfur content in some organic soil samples. The most suitable sulfur spectral lines for such tasks were found to occur in the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) spectral region and they were used for the construction of calibration curves. For the analysis, both univariate and multivariate statistical models were employed. The results obtained by the different analysis techniques are evaluated and compared. The present study demonstrates both the applicability and efficiency of LIBS for fast sulfur detection in soil matrices when aided by multivariate analysis methods improving the accuracy and extending the potential use of LIBS in such applications.