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In seeking a novel method with the ability of green analysis in monitoring toxic heavy metals residue in fresh leafy vegetables, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) was applied to prove its capability in performing this work. The spectra of fresh vegetable samples polluted in the lab were collected by optimized LIBS experimental setup, and the reference concentrations of cadmium (Cd) from samples were obtained by conventional atomic absorption spectroscopy after wet digestion. The direct calibration employing intensity of single Cd line and Cd concentration exposed the weakness of this calibration method. Furthermore, the accuracy of linear calibration can be improved a little by triple Cd lines as characteristic variables, especially after the spectra were pretreated. However, it is not enough in predicting Cd in samples. Therefore, partial least-squares regression (PLSR) was utilized to enhance the robustness of quantitative analysis. The results of the PLSR model showed that the prediction accuracy of the Cd target can meet the requirement of determination in food safety. This investigation presented that LIBS is a promising and emerging method in analyzing toxic compositions in agricultural products, especially combined with suitable chemometrics.

Meat can be polluted by heavy metals during the feeding of livestock and processing of meat. It is necessary to monitor the concentration of toxic metals in meat. The element chromium (Cr) in pork was selected as a determination target for this work. Fresh pork was polluted in a Cr solution to create a different content level, then dried and pressed into pellets to eliminate the effect of water and improve the stability and sensitivity of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). The spectra of pressed pellets were collected at optimized LIBS experimental parameters. After that, the real content of samples was obtained by atomic absorption spectroscopy. Characteristic lines Cr I 425.43, Cr I 427.48, and Cr I 428.97 were verified, and a model comparing the LIBS intensity of the line peak and the actual concentration of Cr was constructed. The results showed that the model has better predicted precision and accuracy, especially applying the line Cr I 425.43 for calibration. This work makes it obvious that LIBS has food safety potential for detecting residue of heavy metals in meat.

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) coupled with the linear multivariate regression method was utilized to analyze chromium (Cr) quantitatively in potatoes. The plasma was generated using a Nd:YAG laser, and the spectra were acquired by an Andor spectrometer integrated with an ICCD detector. The models between intensity of LIBS characteristic line(s) and concentration of Cr were constructed to predict quantitatively the content of target. The unary, binary, ternary, and quaternary variables were chosen for verifying the accuracy of linear regression calibration curves. The intensity of characteristic lines Cr (CrI: 425.43, 427.48, 428.97 nm) and Ca (CaI: 422.67, 428.30, 430.25, 430.77, 431.86 nm) were used as input data for the multivariate calculations. According to the results of linear regression, the model of quaternary linear regression was established better in comparing with the other three models. A good agreement was observed between the actual content provided by atomic absorption spectrometry and the predicted value obtained by the quaternary linear regression model. And the relative error was below 5.5% for validation samples S1 and S2. The result showed that the multivariate approach can obtain better predicted accuracy than the univariate ones. The result also suggested that the LIBS technique coupled with the linear multivariate calibration method could be a great tool to predict heavy metals in farm products in a rapid manner even though samples have similar elemental compositions.