Influence of Flame Emission Spectroscopy on K measurement Using Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy

Abstract

During the combustion of coal or biomass, the inherent alkali metals in the fuel will be released to the gas phase. The released alkali species condensed during the cooling of the flue gas, which may subsequently cause problems with ash deposition and corrosion in thermal fuel conversion systems. Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) is an effective technique to measure the alkali species in the plume of burning coal or biomass. In this study, an LIBS experimental system with a flat flame burner was set up, and the Flame Emission Spectroscopy (FES) and LIBS of K in the flat flame environment were measured using different ICCD gate-width times. The experimental results revealed that with the same ICCD gate-width time, the LIBS intensity of K was higher than the FES intensity of K in the flat flame. With the increase of the ICCD gate-width time, both intensities increased, but their increase rates were different: the increase rate of the LIBS intensity of K was firstly fast then became slow, but the increase rate of the FES intensity of K was constant. Furthermore, the intensity ratio of LIBS to FES of K increased monotonically with the ICCD gate-width time in the range of 0-8 µs, until reaching approximately 4. Then, further increasing the ICCD gate-width time, such ratio decreased slowly with an asymptote value of 1. After analyzing the influences of the FES on the LIBS measurement of K in a flame condition, it is proposed that to minimize such influence, the optimization of the ICCD gate-width time was necessary, which maximized the intensity ratio of LIBS to FES-of K and facilitated the measurement accuracy of K in the flame environment using LIBS.