Rapid determination of trace cadmium in drinking water using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy coupled with chelating resin enrichment

The determination of heavy metals in drinking water is of great importance, but it is hard to realize rapid and in-situ measurement. Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy is an effective method for both solid and liquid sample analysis with advantages of fast and micro-destructive. However, the concentrations of heavy metals in drinking water is too low to be directly detected using LIBS. In this study, we enhanced the sensitivity of LIBS by coupling with chelating resin, which is usually used for water purification. The resin provided a rapid enrichment of the heavy metal, so the limits of detection of common LIBS system was much enhanced. Using Cadmium as the representative heavy metal, PLSR model for predicting Cd were built based on the spectral intensity (Cd 214.4 nm) with concentrations from 0 to 100 µg/L, and resulted in correlation coefficient of 0.94433 and RMSE of 7.1517 µg/L. The LoD was 3.6 µg/L. Furthermore, the volume, resin mass, adsorption time, and LIBS system parameters were optimized for practical applications. We also demonstrated that the resin can be recycled without loss in sensing ability. The combination of chelating resin with LIBS provides inexpensive, rapid, and sensitive detection method of trace heavy metal contaminants in drinking water.