Our recent work has determined the carbon content in a melting ferroalloy by laser- induced breakdown spectroscopy （LIBS）. The emission spectrum of carbon that we obtained in the laboratory is suitable for carbon content determination in a melting ferroalloy but we cannot get the expected results when this method is applied in industrial conditions： there is always an unacceptable error of around 4% between the actual value and the measured value. By comparing the measurement condition in the industrial condition with that in the laboratory, the results show that the temperature of the molten ferroalloy samples to be measured is constant under laboratory conditions while it decreases gradually under industrial conditions. However, temperature has a considerable impact on the measurement of carbon content, and this is the reason why there is always an error between the actual value and the measured value. In this paper we compare the errors of carbon content determination at different temperatures to find the optimum reference temperature range which can fit the requirements better in industrial conditions and, hence, make the measurement more accurate. The results of the comparative analyses show that the measured value of the carbon content in molten state （1620 K） is consistent with the nominal value of the solid standard sample （error within 0.7%）. In fact, it is the most accurate measurement in the solid state. Based on this, we can effectively improve the accuracy of measurements in laboratory and can provide a reference standard of temperature for the measurement in industrial conditions.
Although single-pulse lasers are often used in traditional laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy （LIBS） measurements, their measurement outcomes are generally undesirable because of the low sensitivity of carbon in iron-based alloys. In this article, a double-pulse laser was applied to improve the signal intensity of carbon. Both the inter-pulse delay and the combination of laser wavelengths in double-pulse laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy （DP-LIBS） were optimized in our experiment. At the optimized inter-pulse delay, the combination of a first laser of 532 nm and a second laser of 1,064 nm achieved the highest signal enhancement. The properties of the target also played a role in determining the mass ablation enhancement in DP-LIBS configuration.
