Monitoring of waste-handling technologies by fiber optical chemical sensors

At first two fiber optical sensor designs are described for on-line and in situ detection of both particle-bound and water-dissolved polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with fiber length > 10 m. The time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy described here permits detection limits in the ngl-1 and (mu) gm-3 range, respectively. Laser-induced breakdown spectrometry was investigated as a sensor for the rapid determination of trace amounts of heavy metals in soils. The measured detection limits meet the levels required for a screening technique.