Application of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) in environmental monitoring

In recent years, the situation of global environmental pollution becomes more challenging. Environmental monitoring is essential to timely and accurately reflect the current situations and the trends of environmental quality. Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) as a prominent analytical technique demonstrates several advantages, such as rapid, real-time, in-situ, and simultaneous detection of multiple elements with simple sample preparation. It has great application potential in the field of environmental analysis. Therefore, it is necessary and important to review the progress of basic research and the application of LIBS technology in the environmental field. The present article reviews the research studies on LIBS analysis for environmental samples in the most recent ten years (2010–2019), and mainly includes basic research (LIBS introduction, signal enhancement, and chemometrics methods in LIBS analysis) and application progress (soil, water, and atmospheric monitoring). It will help readers to better understand the current research status of the LIBS technique in environmental monitoring.