Detection of sodium aerosol using laser induced breakdown spectroscopy

Abstract

Analysis of sodium aerosol is very important in various field including nuclear power station, electronic industry, and medical field. In medical field, aerosol detection can be employed to earlier detection of disease based on liquid in human being. In this present work, aerosol sodium detection has been performed using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) utilizing pulse Nd:YAG laser. In the study, sodium aerosol made of sodium chloride (NaCl) liquid was deposited on a copper (Cu) metal plate. The Cu plate functions as a metal subtarget to initiate a plasma emission and to improve the emission intensity of sodium line. Experimentally, a pulse laser Nd YAG (1064 nm, 7 ns, dan 45 mJ) was focused on a sodium aerosol to induce a luminous plasma. The plasma was then sent into the spectrometer to obtain the emission spectrum of sodium. The observed sodium aerosol samples were made in five variations based on their various molarities (concentrations). Variations are made, ranging from 1 molar to 3 molar with the difference of each sample of 0.5 molar. Sharp Na lines at 588.9 nm and 589.3 nm, which overlap due to low resolution of spectrometer were clearly detected. The other lines coming from Cu subtarget occurs at 324.7 nm and 327.4 nm. Detail study of sodium analysis using laser induced breakdown spectroscopy will be presented.