Development and application of a low-cost smartphone-based turbidimeter using scattered light

We demonstrate the development and application of a low-cost smartphone turbidimeter system to be used on water samples collected from natural resources. The proposed system depends on the spectroscopic measurements of both forward- and side-scattered light. A custom-designed cradle was fabricated using 3D printing, and plastic optical fibers were used to couple light from the smartphone's built-in flash and transmit the collected scattered light to the camera sensor. The performance parameters of the smartphone turbidimeter were investigated and compared to commercial systems, and the lowest limit of detection was found to be 5.58 NM for forward-scattered detection. The results obtained in the proposed scattered-light-based spectroscopic turbidimeter and the practicality achieved by this extremely low-cost device will have a great impact on water science and technology. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America