Use of a scanner and digital image-processing software for the quantification of adsorbed substances

The possibility of using a desktop scanner and digital image-processing software for the numerical evaluation of the color intensity of substances adsorbed on polyurethane foam is studied. The method is based on scanning colored samples of polyurethane foam using a desktop scanner, processing the color images using Adobe Photoshop as a graphics editor, and building calibration plots of the luminosity of the selected channel (R, G, or B) as a function of the concentration of the test compound using the Origin software. It has been found that the calibration plots are described by a first-order exponential decay function. The advantages of the method are its high performance, rapidity, and the possibility of mathematical processing of the results. It has been found that substances adsorbed on polyurethane foam can be determined with the use of a scanner and the corresponding image-processing software with the same sensitivity as with the use of diffuse-reflectance Spectroscopy.