Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy has been applied to polymer sampl
es in order to investigate the possibility of using this method for th
e identification of different materials. The plasma emission spectra o
f high-density polyethylene (HDPE), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), p
olyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and polypro
pylene (PP) have been studied. Spectral features have been measured-fo
r example, the 725.7 nm chlorine line, the 486.13 mm H-beta line, and
the 247.86 nm carbon line-whose evaluation with neural networks permit
s identification accuracies between 90 and 100%, depending on polymer
type.