Optimization of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy parameters from the design of experiments for multi-element qualitative analysis in river sediment

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a fast, low analytical cost, environmentally clean technique that does not require the use of reagents for sample preparation. However, regardless of the LIBS setup, it has limitations in terms of sensitivity and precision, especially when applied to complex samples, such as river sediment. To overcome these limitations, in this work, different experimental parameters were optimized for multi-element analysis of a river sediment sample using design of experiments (DOE) approaches, i.e., fractional factorial and central composite designs (CCD). The findings demonstrated that DOE applied to the LIBS technique can be used as an efficient tool for optimizing the key parameters affecting sediment analysis by LIBS.