Yao Shunchun

Improved Measurement Performance of Inorganic Elements in Coal by Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy Coupled with Internal Standardization

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy was employed to determine the inorganic elements in coal. To improve the measurements accuracy and precision, a new internal standardization scheme, which we named changed internal standardization, was compared with the traditional internal standardization and no internal standardization for the analysis of inorganic elements. The new internal standardization scheme used the atomic line of carbon at 247.86 nm and the molecular band of CN at 388.34 nm and C2 at 516.32 nm to normalize the lines of inorganic elements that were distributed in the same spectral channel. The performance of the utilization of the new internal standardization scheme was evaluated using a set of coal samples, including twenty calibration samples and five validation samples. The results show that the coefficients of determination R2 and the slope of calibration models coupled with changed internal standardization are better than that of the calibration models coupled with fixed internal standardization and no internal standardization. Moreover, the measurement accuracy and reproducibility of changed internal standardization for the analysis of five validation samples also yielded further improvement. The results that we obtained suggest that changed internal standardization could compensate for the matrix effects, as well as the influence of the difference in the spectral response of the light collection system.

A Study on the Characteristics of Carbon-Related Spectral Lines from a Laser-Induced Fly Ash Plasma

A 1064 nm Nd:YAG laser was used to ablate fly ash samples. The characteristics of the spectral lines measured from the laserablated fly ash plasmas are presented with special attention to atomic and molecular carbon emission. It is shown that the intensity of the atomic line C I 192.9 nm is weak and the shot-to-shot intensity is fluctuant. The carbon atomic line C I 247.7 nm is relatively intensive and stable, however it is seriously interfered with by Fe I 247.8 nm. The intensity of the CN molecular line is close to that of C I 247.7 nm and the CN line is stable and less interfered with. The comparison of molecular CN emission under different conditions (air, Ar and N2) shows that the CN lines detected from the plasmas formed in an atmospheric environment are correlated with the reaction of carbon atoms in the plasma with the nitrogen in air, which indicates that the CN line is also important in pulsed laser ablation fly ash plasmas and this information can be incorporated in the detection of unburned carbon content in fly ash. Finally, a calibration curve is established with a correlation coefficient R2 of 0.999, using C I 247.7 nm and the CN molecular line as associated variables. In addition, accuracy is improved to a certain extent.