LIBS Technique Applied to the Qualitative determination of Tobacco

F. C. ALVIRA; L. PONCE CABRERA; T. FLORES REYES; G. M. BILMES

La Habana

Conferencia; Conferencia Internacional de Optica, Fotonica y Fotociencias; 2014

Universidad de La Habana

Tobacco is a product of agriculture, originating in America and processed from the leaves of various plants of the genus Nicotiana tabacum. It is the inedible plant that occupies the largest area planted in the world, according to a recent report from the Food and Agricultural Organization, United Nation. It is consumed in several ways, but undoubtedly combustion is the main. The quality of the combustion of the tobacco is directly related with his elemental composition, particularly the Mg/Ca relationship which depends on several factors such as soil composition or employed fertilizer. Another problem related to tobacco is the adulteration, which consists in change the denomination of origin of the tobacco. The aim of this paper is to develop a quick, easy and cheap technique to the determination of tobacco composition. The paper shows Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy experiments applied to qualitative measurement of tobacco of different origin and the determination of the Mg/Ca relationship. We propose it as origin indicator of the tobacco.