Quantitative analysis of saindha salt using laser induced breakdown spectroscopy and cross-validation with ICP-MS

Saindha salt is considered to be more advantageous than the other edible salts for the patients suffering from diabetes, blood pressure and kidney diseases. To explore the constituent elements of this salt, laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) has been exploited for its qualitative and quantitative analysis. The third harmonic (355 nm) of a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser has been used to produce the saindha salt plasma and the time integrated optical emission spectra were registered using a set of six miniature spectrometers covering the spectral range of 230–805 nm. The spectroscopic analysis of the emission spectra predominately revealed numerous neutral or singly ionized emission lines of Ca, Mg, Na, K, Fe, Sr, Si, Li and Al. The laser produced plasma was characterized by calculating the electron temperature from the Boltzmann plots and the electron number density from the Stark broadened line profile as a function of laser irradiance and distance from the target sample. The relative concentration of the constituent elements was extracted by the integrated line intensities of the strongest spectral line of each element using the self-calibration-LIBS (SC-LIBS) and one-line calibration free-LIBS (OLCF-LIBS) methods. For cross-validation, the LIBS results have been compared with that obtained from the inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS) showing good agreement.