3D-printed device for the kinetic determination of As(III) in groundwater samples by digital movie analysis

Abstract

High concentrations of inorganic arsenic in groundwater for human consumption is a worldwide common problem. Particularly, the determination of As(III) becomes important, since this species is more toxic than organic, pentavalent and elemental arsenic forms. In this work, a 3D-printed device that included a 24-well microplate was developed to perform the colourimetric kinetic determination of arsenic (III) by digital movie analysis. A smartphone camera attached to the device was used to take the movie during the process where As(III) inhibited the decolourization of methyl orange. The movie images were subsequently transformed from RGB to YIQ space to obtain a new analytical parameter called “d”, which was related to the chrominance of the image. Then, this parameter allowed the determination of the inhibition time of reaction (tin), which was linearly correlated with the concentration of As(III). A linear calibration curve (R = 0.9995) in the range from 5 μg L−1 to 200 μg L−1 was obtained. The method was precise (RSD = 1.2%), and the limits of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ) were 1.47 μg L−1 and 4.44 μg L−1, respectively. These values were lower than the limit established by the World Health Organization for total arsenic in drinking water (10 μg L−1). The accuracy of the method was assessed by a recovery study with optimal results (94.3%–104.0%). Additionally, the Analytical GREEnness metric approach was applied, obtaining a score 1.7 times higher than previously published works. The method is simple, portable and low-cost, being in compliance with various principles of green analytical chemistry.