MATLAB assisted disposable sensors for quantitative determination of arsenic

Abstract

A method for determination of arsenic is described. The sensor was constructed by immobilizing reagents on TLC (thin layer chromatography) paper. The reaction is based on chromogenic reaction of arsenic with a coupling complex of sulfanilic acid and N-(1-naphthyl) ethylene diamine dihydrochloride (NEDA) and formation of purple to magenta spots followed by scanner based detection. Changes in RGB values of color spots on TLC strips create a pattern. The obtained pattern was analyzed using MATLAB software. The proposed sensor is linear in the range 1–10 and 25–100 μg mL ⁻¹. The minimum detection limit found was 0.018 μg mL⁻¹of arsenic.