Smartphones used to check water for pollutants – by tracking paramecia

Even though it’s vitally important for people in impoverished nations to check drinking water sources for pollutants, they often lack the facilities for performing such tests. A new system could help, as it uses a smartphone camera to check up on tiny aquatic organisms.

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Tau.Neutrino said:

Smartphones used to check water for pollutants – by tracking paramecia

Even though it’s vitally important for people in impoverished nations to check drinking water sources for pollutants, they often lack the facilities for performing such tests. A new system could help, as it uses a smartphone camera to check up on tiny aquatic organisms.

more…

I have a plug-in USB microscope that would work on a smartphone. But it only has 8 times magnification. Good enough for insects down to 1 mm in length, perhaps even 500 microns in length, but nowhere near good enough for giardia with a diameter near 10 microns. E coli as an indicator of water pollution is very much smaller than that, and is best checked for using a petri dish.

Paramecium is 50 to 330 microns in length so conceivably would be visible in a good smartphone microscope. But, um, I wouldn’t rely on it.

They’ll need to improve the close-up abilities of the lenses by a long shot. Maybe a close-up attachment but as Moll says, you’ll need a microscope attachment.