Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy used to detect palladium and silver metal dispersed in bacterial cellulose membranes

The technique of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy has been used for the first time to our knowledge for the identification of metals such as palladium and silver that were dispersed in bacterial cellulose membranes. These results for palladium-dispersed films have been correlated to a calibration curve obtained by use of atomic absorption spectroscopy and were found to be in good agreement. The experiments were conducted by use of wet and dry metal-doped membranes. The metal peaks obtained with a dry membrane are greater than five times higher in signal-to-background ratio than when metals are detected by a hydrated membrane. The advantage of this laser-based technique is that minimal sample handling and sample preparation are needed and measurements are completed in real time (a few seconds). Hence this technique can be used for the detection of metals in dry membranes that would be used in the construction of electrode assemblies.