Design and Fabrication of a low-cost fluorescent-based hydrocarbon detector

This work describes an efficient low cost and portable method that can be used for the detection of pollutants in water such as hydrocarbons in oceans, rivers, aquifers, and other sites. According to the detection behavior of the portable system gives the opportunity to obtain real time measurements of pollutants with high resolution and, low cost. A strong absorbance band was found for different hydrocarbons in the wavelength range of 375-380 nm subsequently, fluorescence response was found in the wavelength range of 400-500 nm. High Power UV LEDs (HP UV-LED) were used to stimulate the fluorescence and a wide range (400-1100 nm) photodetector for the detection embedded in the portable device. Moreover, the paper includes experimental results about the minimal hydrocarbon thickness on water that can be detected, as well as a bandpass filter to optimize the electrical measurement. The low cost of this system implies the use of discrete electronics such as a photodetector, UV light-emitting diode and a circuit transimpedance amplifier.