Determination of the deuterium/hydrogen ratio in gas reaction products by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

This paper reports the first application of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy technique (LIBS) to the determination of deuterium/hydrogen numeric ratio (β) in the headspace gases, essentially HD + H2, that are generated by the hydrolysis of NaBD4–NaBH4 mixtures (molar fraction of NaBD4, x = 50–100%) in acidic H2O media (0 < pH < 1). The LIBS measurement of β can be easily achieved with a coefficient of variation better than 5% (over four replicates). The value of β allowed the calculation of the molar fraction of NaBD4, xLIBS, with a coefficient of variation better than 2.5%. The comparison of x vs. xLIBS gives results that are in good agreement, within an average deviation of 3%, for x in the range of 50–100%. The best performances are obtained for β close to unit, which makes LIBS perfectly suited for the detection of H–D exchange taking place during aqueous hydrolysis of NaBD4 or NaBH4.