A MEMS-Based Multi-Parameter Integrated Chip and Its Portable System for Water Quality Detection.

Ziyue Wu,Chao Bian,Jiaqi Wang,Shanhong Xia,Jianhua Tong

doi:10.3390/mi11010063

Abstract

As an important means to protect water resources, water quality detection is of great social and economic significance. Water quality detection sensors processed by micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) technology have the advantages of low-cost, small size, and high sensitivity. In this paper, a multi-parameter water quality detection integrated sensor chip is further studied, and a portable detection system using this chip is developed. Temperature, pH, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), conductivity and concentration of copper ions (Cu2+) are selected as typical water quality parameters. Experiments of sensor calibrations using this portable detection system were performed in standard solutions. The sensor has a sensitivity of −57.34 mV/pH in pH detection and 5.95 Ω/°C in temperature response. ORP is directly detected by Pt microelectrode on the chip and the relative error is less than 3%. The electrode constant of the sensor is 1.416 cm−1 and the linearity is 0.9995 in conductivity detection. With the gold nanoparticles deposited on the electrode, the detection peak of Cu2+ appears at 280 mV and the sensor shows good linearity to the concentration of Cu2+ in the range of 0–0.6 mg/L. The detection limit of Cu2+ concentration is 2.33 μg/L. Through measurement and calculation, the accuracy of the portable system is within 4%. This portable multi-parameter water quality detection system with the MEMS-based integrated chip shows great potential in the field and fast detection.

Highlights

The contamination of water has attracted many people’s attention all over the world
It can obtain the status of water pollution and provide an important reference for subsequent treatment decisions [1]
The direct way to measure it is to detect its potential against a reference electrode (RE) [11,14]

Summary

Introduction

The contamination of water has attracted many people’s attention all over the world. Water protection can start from the water quality inspection through the detection of physical and chemical indicators in the water samples. A series of parameters can be used to characterize water quality, including pH, turbidity, free chlorine, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, temperature, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), heavy metal, and so on [1,4]. The detection of a single parameter is not enough to judge water quality [2]. Multi-parameter, integrated and simultaneous detections are the foci of current researches.

Results

Conclusion