Determination of yttrium in titanium alloys using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy assisted with laser-induced fluorescence

Determining the concentration of material enhancing elements is one of the key issues for ensuring the quality and performance of titanium alloy products. Traditional methods used for determining these elements lack the ability of fast and in situ analysis, and have slowed the research and development of these products. In this work, the determination of yttrium in titanium alloys using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy assisted with laser-induced fluorescence (LIBS-LIF) has been investigated. With the selective enhancement of the characteristic lines of yttrium under optimized parameters, analytical performance was overwhelmingly improved with a limit of detection (LoD) of 0.3 ppm, a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.995, and a root mean square error of cross validation (RMSECV) of 12 ppm. The results demonstrate that LIBS-LIF is an effective method for the quantification of yttrium in titanium alloys, and the procedure itself works as a great complement to LIBS based analytical chemistry.