Colorimetric Bisphenol-A Detection With a Portable Smartphone-Based Spectrometer

Abstract

Water quality monitoring in resource-limited settings without access to a sophisticated laboratory requires the development of low cost and portable instrumentation. Herein, we propose a newly designed handheld reflection-based smart-phone sensing platform to detect Bisphenol-A (BPA), a well-known endocrine disruptor agent abundantly used in plastic industry. An experimental investigation relying on color change due to the formation of quinone-type complex was conducted with samples from two different water sources: distilled and commercial drinking water. This colorimetric measurement device was used to determine BPA in distilled water in alkaline environments. The successful combination of colorimetric assay and spectrometer facilitates limit of detection in the low ppm levels, 0.29 ppm for smartphone and 0.23 ppm for commercial spectrometer, with a sensitivity of 0.1/ppm.