Low-Cost, Robust, and Field Portable Smartphone Platform Photometric Sensor for Fluoride Level Detection in Drinking Water

Abstract

Groundwater is the major source of drinking water for people living in rural areas of India. Pollutants such as fluoride in groundwater may be present in much higher concentration than the permissible limit. Fluoride does not give any visible coloration to water, and hence, no effort is made to remove or reduce the concentration of this chemical present in drinking water. This may lead to a serious health hazard for those people taking groundwater as their primary source of drinking water. Sophisticated laboratory grade tools such as ion selective electrodes (ISE) and portable spectrophotometers are commercially available for in-field detection of fluoride level in drinking water. However, such tools are generally expensive and require expertise to handle. In this paper, we demonstrate the working of a low cost, robust, and field portable smartphone platform fluoride sensor that can detect and analyze fluoride concentration level in drinking water. For development of the proposed sensor, we utilize the ambient light sensor (ALS) of the smartphone as light intensity detector and its LED flash light as an optical source. An android application "FSense" has been developed which can detect and analyze the fluoride concentration level in water samples. The custom developed application can be used for sharing of in-field sensing data from any remote location to the central water quality monitoring station. We envision that the proposed sensing technique could be useful for initiating a fluoride removal program undertaken by governmental and nongovernmental organizations here in India.

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Investigations of Naphthalene-Based 1,2,3-Triazole Systems for Anion Sensing

“…The ability to detect fluoride is important for the environment, industry, biological systems, and the military [6,8]. Developing cost-effective, high-performance, easily portable methods for the detection of this anion is highly beneficial to society [8].…”

“…Developing cost-effective, high-performance, easily portable methods for the detection of this anion is highly beneficial to society [8]. The fluoride (F − ) anion, in particular, has a significant impact on health.…”

Design of a 3D printed smartphone microscopic system with enhanced imaging ability for biomedical applications

“…These facets have limited the accessibility of the tool in resource‐limited regions (Breslauer et al ., ; Zhu et al ., ). Several research groups around the globe have recently been involved towards the development of a new platform using smartphone which can be reliably used for sensing of different physical and chemical parameters (Gallegos et al ., ; Lopez‐Ruiz et al ., ; Dutta et al ., ; Dutta et al ., ; Hossain et al ., ; Hussain et al ., ; Dutta et al ., ; Hussain et al ., ,b; Mutlu et al ., ; Chen et al ., ; Natesan et al ., ) and imaging of various biological samples (Vashist et al ., ; Knowlton et al ., ; Contreras‐Naranjo et al ., ; Scherr et al ., ; Yoon et al ., ; Sun & Hu, ; Jawale et al ., ; Purwar et al ., ). Currently, there are approximately 8.1 billion mobile phone subscribers around the world, and ∼40% of the phone subscribers use smartphones.…”

Smartphone-based Fluoride-specific Sensor for Rapid and Affordable Colorimetric Detection and Precise Quantification at Sub-ppm Levels for Field Applications

“…Moreover, the rapid development of smartphones with various embedded sensors or external sensors (e.g., circuit and probe) integrated with the smartphones for more sophisticated and accurate detection have enabled wide range of applications in environmental and health-related monitoring. 28 − 30 …”