Reflectance-based detection for long term environmental monitoring

Brandy J Johnson; Anthony P Malanoski; Jeffrey S Erickson; Ray Liu; Allison R Remenapp; David A Stenger; Martin H Moore

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2017.e00312

Reflectance-based detection for long term environmental monitoring

Heliyon. 2017 Jun 7;3(6):e00312. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2017.e00312. eCollection 2017 Jun.

Authors

Brandy J Johnson¹, Anthony P Malanoski¹, Jeffrey S Erickson¹, Ray Liu², Allison R Remenapp³, David A Stenger¹, Martin H Moore¹

Affiliations

¹ Center for Bio/Molecular Science and Engineering, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375 USA.
² Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria, VA 22312 USA.
³ Department of Chemistry, Washington College, Chestertown, MD 21620 USA.

Abstract

Here, the potential of colorimetric sensors utilizing porphyrin indicators for long term environmental monitoring is demonstrated. Prototype devices based on commercial color sensing chips (six per device) were combined with in-house developed algorithms for data analysis. The devices are intended to provide real-time sensing of threats. An initial outdoor data set was collected using prototype devices with occasional spiked exposure to targets. This data was supported by similar data collected in a controlled indoor environment. Weaknesses in the noted performance of the devices during these experiments were addressed through altering device parameters, algorithm parameters, and array element composition. Additional outdoor data sets totaling 1,616 h and indoor data sets totaling 728 h were collected in support of assessing these changes to the system configuration. The optimized system provided receiver operating characteristics (ROC) of specificity 0.97 and sensitivity 1.0.

Keywords: Environmental science.