In situ synthesis of low-cost NELIBS substrate for rapid detection of ultra-low trace elements in liquid samples

Nanoparticle Enhanced LIBS is one of the most powerful and emerging techniques with high sensitivity for trace element analysis and finding increasing applications in various fields of analytical chemistry. Despite many efforts being put forward for the design of NELIBS substrate, it remains a great challenge for developing a highly sensitive substrate that could be helpful for environmental and biological applications. In this work, we report our attempt to improve the detection sensitivity by developing a facile and versatile method capable of generating silver nanoparticles in-situ on the surface of poly dimethyl siloxane (PDMS) in a simple, cost-effective, and additional capping agent free-way. The prepared Ag-decorated PDMS substrate exhibits excellent sensitivity at extremely low concentrations enabling the detection of Cu, Pb, and Cd at a concentration as low as sub ppb levels. Analytical prediction capabilities of this technique was validated using leave one out method and results show interesting possibilities.