The use of Liquid-Liquid Microextraction Procedures as a Method to Improve the Analytical Performance of LIBS in the Analysis of Liquid Samples

Compared to solid samples analysis, the analysis of liquids by LIBS is usually less sensitive and experimentally more problematic. These drawbacks, and the fact that, nowadays, other spectroscopic techniques are able to perform elemental analysis in liquids with better analytical performance than LIBS, have been a brake for the development of applications involving this kind of matrices. As a consequence, LIBS applications to liquids are, at the present, fewer than those involving solids. However, some unique features of LIBS, such as its ability to perform remote analysis or its field-operable instrumentation, make this technique ideal for particular applications not affordable by other spectroscopic techniques. For this reason, the study on the use of LIBS for liquids analysis, with the aim to solve its main drawbacks and to improve its analytical performance, is an interesting field of research. In this lecture, the difficulties of LIBS analysis of liquids will be presented, and an overview of different approaches aimed to improve its analytical performance will be given. In particular, the possibility to hyphenate LIBS detection with Liquid-Liquid Microextraction procedures for improving sensitivity, enabling trace elemental analysis in liquids, will be shown.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to the Spanish Government (CTQ2011-23968) and the Regional Government of Valencia (Spain) (ACOMP/2013/072) for supporting the research presented in this lecture.