Abstract
We describe our results obtained from stoichiometric ratio studies of three different energetic, inorganic samples (ammonium perchlorate (AP), boron potassium nitrate (BPN), and ammonium nitrate (AN)) using the technique of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) with nanosecond pulses. Signal collection was independently executed using both gated and nongated spectrometers. The oxygen peak at 777.31 nm (O) and nitrogen peaks at 742.50 nm (N1), 744.34 nm (N2), and 746.91 nm (N3) were used for evaluating the O/N ratios. Temporal analysis of plasma parameters and ratios was carried out for the gated data. O/N1, O/N2, and O/N3 ratios retrieved from the gated AP data were in excellent agreement with the actual stoichiometry. In the case of gated BPN data, O/N2 and O/N3 ratios were in good agreement. The stoichiometry results obtained with nongated spectrometer, although less accurate than that obtained with gated spectrometer, suggest that it can be used in applications where fair accuracy is sufficient. Our results strongly indicate that non-gated LIBS technique is worthwhile in the kind of applications where precision classification is not required.
Highlights
Nanosecond laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) has been extensively employed in elemental analysis, impurity detection [1, 2], and identification/classification of materials [3, 4]
Though the signal to background ratio is less in the case of nongated detection, compared to that of gated scheme, its use in instrumentation can help cut down the operating expenses drastically
LIBS studies on inorganic compounds such as ammonium perchlorate (AP, NH4ClO4), boron potassium nitrate mixture (BPN, BKNO3), and ammonium nitrate (AN, NH4NO3) are reported wherein the comparison of O/N ratios was evaluated in order to evaluate the performance of nongated detection scheme vis-a-vis a gated detection method
Summary
Nanosecond (ns) laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) has been extensively employed in elemental analysis, impurity detection [1, 2], and identification/classification of materials [3, 4]. It has been established that the use of LIBS for identification of compounds on an operational level requires extensive developments in two directions (a) determination of stoichiometry of a particular compound by using intensity ratios of spectral lines of one or more pairs of elements [18,19,20] and (b) matching the unknown spectrum with predetermined and assembled spectral library of reference materials of interest This particular method was employed by de Lucia and Gottfried [21] along with other elemental ratios calculation as part of an algorithm to discriminate explosives and achieved good success. LIBS studies on inorganic compounds such as ammonium perchlorate (AP, NH4ClO4), boron potassium nitrate mixture (BPN, BKNO3), and ammonium nitrate (AN, NH4NO3) are reported wherein the comparison of O/N ratios was evaluated in order to evaluate the performance of nongated detection scheme vis-a-vis a gated detection method Based on these ratios one could perform an initial screening of materials for differentiating nitrogen-containing (hazardous) compounds from other organic/inorganic (safe) compounds. One could further develop powerful algorithms based on other atomic/molecular line intensity ratios for the fool-proof discrimination of HEM’s
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