title: A novel specimen-preparing method using epoxy resin as binding material for LIBS analysis of powder samples.
abstract: In view of the inevitable preprocessing of powder samples for LIBS detection, epoxy resin glue was investigated for the first time as a binder of powder samples due to its superior property of improved performance in laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) technique as a quantitative analytical tool. For comparative studies of the epoxy resin and traditional polyethylene (PE) pellets in soil, sample detection, the signal intensities of Fe (I) at 404.58 nm, Ca (I) at 443.57 nm, and Cr (I) at 453.52 nm, were studied and subsequently, the calibration curves for these elements were constructed using the standard samples with variable concentrations. The signal intensities of epoxy resin samples were, on average, about 2 times greater than those obtained with the traditional PE pellet samples. Meanwhile, the resin samples showed better R square values of 0.981, 0.985 and 0.979 for curves of Fe (I) 404.58 nm, Ca (I) 443.57 nm, and Cr (I) 453.52 nm, compared to the 0.974, 0.950 and 0.934, of the PE pellet samples. Furthermore, the former represented lower limits of detection (LOD) for Fe, Ca and Cr. These experimental results indicated that this proposed novel method based on epoxy resin can attach samples of properties of high homogeneity, cohesiveness, smoothness and hardness, which are conducive to system stability, testing accuracy and signal enhancement. This method can make LIBS more practical in powder sample analysis.
authors.affiliation: Research Center of Analytical Instrumentation, College of Chemistry, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610064, China.
authors.forename: Linli
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Research Center of Analytical Instrumentation, College of Life sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610064, China.
authors.forename: Qingyu
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Research Center of Analytical Instrumentation, College of Chemistry, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610064, China; Research Center of Analytical Instrumentation, College of Life sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610064, China. Electronic address: yduan@scu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yixiang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Duan
keywords: Analysis of powder samples; Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy; Specimen-preparing method