Utilizing your smartphone as heavy metals detector

Lumia 640 was used by the researchers as a device (image is credited to gsmarena.com)

It could be a wonderful idea to change your smartphone into a metal detector. Researchers and scientists from the University of Houstan, USA have successfully altered the functions of a smartphone into a detector, which can sense the presence of lead. This groundbreaking will help not only scientists, but also many people in keeping their healthy by selectively drinking their water when they want to drink water from certain sources.

Lead is common to be found some water. This metal, which can lead to certain organ malfunctions, such as kidneys, is commonly found throughout the pipeline of water system. As long as drinking water is flowed throughout pipeline, the risk of getting disease cannot be avoided. The problem is people do not aware about this situation because pipelines water systems have never been their attention. Subsequently, we need an affordable portable tool that can help us in order to know whether our amounts of water consist with lead.

In respond to this social issue, a portable calorimeter was invented to prevent the lead from the water into our body. The detector is integrated within a smartphone by attaching an inkjet-printed lens, fabricated by using dark-field imaging method. As a result, in detecting the presence of lead, the smartphone will display a microscopy image of lead which is produced by the inkjet-printed lens
So, how it works? The team prepared 1.37 to 175 parts per billion of lead which is contained within the water. This liquid then was added with chromate compounds which formed the lead chromate.

Then the solution was dried gradually by the room temperature so that distilled water was able to be poured to remove the chromate compounds left. These treatments produced a single-colour precipitation which can be analysed by the lens connected to the smartphone’s camera. The lead levels were able to be detected by images in the smartphone.

This research provides a potential method in detecting the presence of lead. Although the samples required were quite small, this method could be used as standard point in quantizing the lead levels. This article is written based on the study published in the journal of Analytical Chemistry.