Applications and Technological Advances of LIBS in Water Quality Monitoring

Abstract

Water is fundamental to human survival, and the security of water resources plays a crucial role in safeguarding ecological balance and public health. The traditional water quality detection methods have problems such as cumbersome operation and long detection cycles, which limit the application in on-site monitoring. As an emerging spectroscopic analytical technique, Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) offers several significant advantages, including the elimination of sample pretreatment, simultaneous multi-element analysis, fast response time, and the avoidance of secondary pollution. In recent years, LIBS has shown great potential in the field of environmental monitoring and is gradually becoming an important tool for water quality analysis and other environmental applications. This review summarizes the research progress of LIBS in water quality monitoring and introduces its fundamental principles and technological development. Based on existing research, it focuses on summarizing the research progress in the LIBS-based applications in water quality analysis, sample pretreatment methods, signal enhancement techniques, spectral data processing approaches, and the integration of detection systems. Furthermore, this article also discusses the current limitations of LIBS in water analysis and looks forward to its development prospects, which will help readers better understand the research needs of LIBS in the field of water quality monitoring.