An Investigation on Design and Characterization of a Highly Selective LED Optical Sensor for Copper Ions in Aqueous Solutions

The optical characteristics of copper ion detection, such as the photometric absorbance of specific wavelengths, exhibit significant intensity change upon incident light into the aqueous solutions with different concentrations of metal ions due to the electron transition in the orbit. In this study, we developed a low-cost, small-size and fast-response photoelectric sensing prototype as an optic sensor for copper (Cu) ions detection by utilizing the principle of optical absorption. We quantified the change of optical absorbance from infra-red (IR) light emitting diodes (LEDs) upon different concentrations of copper ions and the transmitted optical signals were transferred to the corresponding output voltage through a phototransistor and circuit integrated in the photoelectric sensing system. The optic sensor for copper (Cu) ions demonstrated not only excellent specificity with other metal ions such as cadmium (Cd), nickel (Ni), iron (Fe) and chloride (Cl) ions in the same aqueous solution but also satisfactory linearity and reproducibility. The sensitivity of the preliminary sensing system for copper ions was 29 mV/ppm from 0 to 1000 ppm. In addition, significant ion-selective characteristics and anti-interference capability were also observed in the experiments by the proposed approach.