Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy for plastic analysis

Qiang Zeng (1, 2) , Jean-Baptiste Sirven (3) , Jean-Christophe Gabriel (1, 4) , Chor Yong Tay (1, 5) , Jong-Min Lee (1, 2)

1 Energy Research Institute
2 School of Chemical & Biomedical Engineering
3 SEARS - Service d'études analytiques et de réactivité des surfaces
4 LICSEN - Laboratoire Innovation en Chimie des Surfaces et NanoSciences
5 School of Materials Science and Engineering [Singapore]

The huge consumption of modern plastic with improper disposals has posed a great threat to the environment and human beings. To put these post-consumer plastics into the recycling chain, laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) has been established as a potential tool for rapid grading of plastics online. Meanwhile, LIBS is a powerful tool for plastic investigations in the laboratory with the capacity of simultaneous qualitative and quantitative analysis. The present review describes the development and prospect of plastic investigations using LIBS, highlighting the intrinsic advantages of LIBS for plastic recycling. Moreover, the selection of hardware components and analysis methods are discussed, which may help to start a research on plastic using LIBS.

Keywords: Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS); Plastic recycling; Qualitative; Quantitative; Online analysis

Domains: Material chemistry

Qiang Zeng, Jean-Baptiste Sirven, Jean-Christophe Gabriel, Chor Yong Tay, Jong-Min Lee. Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy for plastic analysis. Trends in Analytical Chemistry, 2021, 140, pp.116280. ⟨10.1016/j.trac.2021.116280⟩. ⟨cea-03190338⟩