Feb.9, 2014
Mercury, a shiny, silver-white metal has been well known as an environmental pollutant that is toxic to people and wildlife for several decades. People may be exposed to mercury from a variety of sources, including drinking water. Too much mercury in the human body can cause serious damage to the brain, nervous system and kidneys.
Traditionally, water has been tested for mercury contamination in laboratories using large, expensive instruments, and the procedure is time consuming and requires complex preparation by professionally trained personnel. Researchers from UCLA have designed a 3D-printed smartphone attachment and app that can detect the presence of mercury in water. The test can be performed easily by anyone after only minimal training.
To perform the test, a sample of water is collected in a disposable test tube and then held up to a smartphone equipped with the optical attachment. Using the attachment's LEDs, which are set to two specific frequencies, the device detects subtle changes in how light is transmitted to the phone's built-in camera due to mercury-induced nanoparticle clustering in the water.
The entire process can take as little as 20 minutes per test, including 10 minutes of incubation time.
The platform also includes an Android app that processes the images and quantifies the test results, then organizes the results from tested sites into an online map. This could help track mercury pollution in the environment.
The researchers estimate that the cost per test could be as low as five cents. The attachments, which weigh less than 40 grams, cost about $37 each to produce using a 3-D printer, and could be manufactured at a lower cost if they are made in large quantities.
"Our new platform for mercury testing is essentially a lab on a phone," said Aydogan Ozcan, the Chancellor's Professor of Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering at UCLA, the principal investigator on the research. "It's portable, lightweight and inexpensive to manufacture. And, because of the global proliferation of mobile devices, it could make testing for mercury widely available. Having this kind of test available in resource-limited areas and in the field was an important motivation for our work."
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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