Determination of Ca in breakfast cereals by laser induced breakdown spectroscopy

A method using Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) for calcium (Ca) determination in breakfast cereals was evaluated. To perform the calibration curve, seven commercial cereals containing Ca in a range of 16.00–3734 mg kg−1 were considered. The Ca amounts provided by the manufacturers were evaluated by using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP OES). The precision of the LIBS measurements was of 8% and the accuracy, observed by using a corn bran standard reference material was higher than 99%. The method was successfully applied to predict the Ca concentration in a set of commercial samples dispensing the sample pre-treatment, with the potential to be used in production lines.