Sensors & Transducers, Vol. 148, Issue 1, January 2013, pp.

47-51

Sensors & Transducers

ISSN 1726-5479
2013 by IFSA
http://www.sensorsportal.com

A Portable Spectrophotometer for Water Quality Analysis

1
1

Xiaomin ZHANG, 2 Yanjun FANG, 1* Youquan ZHAO

College of Precision Instrument and Opto-electronics Engineering, Tianjin University,

Tianjin, P. R. China, 300072
2
Institute of Hygiene and Environmental Medicine, Academy of Military Medical Science,
Tianjin, 300050
*
E-mail: zhaoyouquan@tju.edu.cn

Received: 17 October 2012 /Accepted: 24 January 2013 /Published: 28 January 2013

Abstract: A portable water analyzer based on spectrophotometer has been designed and developed. The system
embedded a module of 6 LEDs as long-life light source and a photodiode sensor transforms the light signal to
electric signal, a microcontroller acts as the core of the analyzer to control the LEDs on/off, data acquisition,
LCD and signal processing. For water quality analysis, a series of peak wavelength are selected including
420 nm, 455 nm, 515 nm, 560 nm, 605 nm and 630 nm, which can cover multiparameter like ammonia nitrogen,
nitrite nitrogen, hexavalent chromium and arsenite up to 45 types. In order to test the performance, optical
absorbance is measured back and fro, the results show it is with virtue of high repeatability and linearity. The
system is suitable for rapid test in laboratory and in-situ river water samples test. Copyright 2013 IFSA.
Keyword: Water quality, Spectrophotometer, LED, Absorbance, In-situ measurement.

1. Introduction
The environmental problem is one of the mayor
concerns worldwide. Especially in developing
countries, such as China, there are areas located
mainly in cities, where the quality of environment
accomplishes the international standards. But in
suburban and rural locations the environment quality
decreases as there are many industrial factories
polluting the environment, as well as the abuse using
of agricultural fertilizer [1-2]. The water pollution
and gas contamination are the most concerned as they
affect not only health of the local residents [3], but
also produce social and economic problems.
In order to determine the water quality, physical,
chemical and biological parameters are measured.
Usually physical parameters are detected by human
sense and cannot be quantitative determined on spot,

such as the taste and smell [4]. The number of

chemical parameters should be taken to detect are
more than other kinds of parameters. Besides, many
chemical parameters can be detected through one
method [5]. Take DPD spectrophotometry as an
example, it can detect residual chlorine in drinking
water, by calculating different content of reagents, the
concentration of monochloramine and dichloramine
also can be obtained [5]. The sensor is designed
multiparameter. With different reagents, it can take
quantitative assay on many parameters. For example,
nitrite nitrogen, ammonia nitrogen have already been
measured. Hexavalent chromium, sulfate, iron ion
and other parameters are considered to conduct
experiments.
Various methods for the chemical parameters
analysis have been established, such as
chromatography of ions, gas chromatography, high

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