Application of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy for total carbon quantification in soil samples.

The increase of greenhouse gas (i.e., CO(2)) levels in the atmosphere has caused noticeable climate change. Many nations are currently looking into methods of permanent underground storage for CO(2) in an attempt to mitigate this problem. The goal of this work is to develop a process for studying the total carbon content in soils before, during, and after CO(2) injection to ensure that no leakage is occurring or to determine how much is leaking if it is occurring and what effect it will have on the ecosystem between the injection formation and the atmosphere. In this study, we quantitatively determine the total carbon concentration in soil using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). A soil sample from Starkville, Mississippi, USA was mixed with different amounts of carbon powder, which was used as a calibration for additional carbon in soil. Test samples were prepared by adding different but known amounts of carbon powder to a soil sample and then mixing with polyvinyl alcohol binder before being pressed into pellets. LIBS spectra of the test samples were collected and analyzed to obtain optimized conditions for the measurement of total carbon in soil with LIBS. The total carbon content in the samples was also measured by a carbon analyzer, and the data (average of triplicates) were used as a reference in developing calibration curves for a modified version of the single linear regression model and the multiple linear regression model. The calibration data were then used to determine the total carbon concentration of an unknown sample. This work is intended to be used in the initial development of a miniaturized, field-portable LIBS analyzer for CO(2) leak detection.

[1]  Charles T. Garten,et al.  Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy for the environmental determination of total carbon and nitrogen in soils. , 2003, Applied optics.

[2]  Jagdish P. Singh,et al.  Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy , 2007 .

[3]  R. Lal.  Forest soils and carbon sequestration , 2005 .

[4]  G. Cristoforetti,et al.  Double pulse, calibration-free laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy : A new technique for in situ standard-less analysis of polluted soils , 2006 .

[5]  V. Kiris,et al.  Comparison of two laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy techniques for total carbon measurement in soils , 2009 .

[6]  G. Fu,et al.  Signal enhancement of the laser-induced plasma in the soil mixed with carbon , 2010 .

[7]  L. Martin-Neto,et al.  Total carbon measurement in whole tropical soil sample , 2008 .

[8]  Vivek Dikshit,et al.  Quantitative analysis of slurry sample by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy , 2011, Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry.

[9]  Charles W. Rice,et al.  Emerging technologies for in situ measurement of soil carbon , 2007 .

[10]  Rattan Lal,et al.  Residue management, conservation tillage and soil restoration for mitigating greenhouse effect by CO2-enrichment , 1997 .

[11]  Yakov Kuzyakov,et al.  Sources of CO2 efflux from soil and review of partitioning methods , 2006 .

[12]  Israel Schechter,et al.  Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) : fundamentals and applications , 2006 .

[13]  C. Amrhein,et al.  Spatial and process-based modeling of soil inorganic carbon storage in an arid piedmont , 2010 .

[14]  Nicolas André,et al.  Novel Multivariate Analysis for Soil Carbon Measurements Using Laser‐Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy , 2010 .

[15]  J. R. Brown,et al.  Measuring total soil carbon with laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). , 2001, Journal of environmental quality.

[16]  Jagdish P. Singh,et al.  Parametric study of pellets for elemental analysis with laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. , 2004, Applied optics.

[17]  Awadhesh K. Rai,et al.  Contaminant concentration in environmental samples using LIBS and CF-LIBS , 2010 .

[18]  Rattan Lal,et al.  Soil management and restoration for C sequestration to mitigate the accelerated greenhouse effect. , 1999 .

[19]  Nicolas André,et al.  High resolution applications of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy for environmental and forensic applications , 2007 .