Determination of copper content in soils and ores by laser-induced breakdown spectrometry

It is demonstrated that the method of laser-induced breakdown spectrometry can be applied for quantitative determination of the copper content at a level of 500–40000 g/t, typical for copper ores and soil in the outcrop areas. To avoid the self-absorption of the resonance copper lines, we studied the most intense nonresonant lines of copper atoms and ions. It is shown that the Cu I 521.82-nm line is rather intense and provides the linear calibration. The copper detection limit for this line of 280 g/t allows its use for rapid mapping of outcrop areas.