Full-range optical pH sensor based on imaging techniques

A new colour-based disposable sensor array for a full pH range (0–14) is described. The pH sensing elements are a set of different pH indicators immobilized in plasticized polymeric membranes working by ion-exchange or co-extraction. The colour changes of the 11 elements of the optical array are obtained from a commercial scanner using the hue or H component of the hue, saturation, value (HSV) colour space, which provides a robust and precise parameter, as the analytical parameter. Three different approaches for pH prediction from the hue H of the array of sensing elements previously equilibrated with an unknown solution were studied: Linear model, Sigmoid competition model and Sigmoid surface model providing mean square errors (MSE) of 0.1115, 0.0751 and 0.2663, respectively, in the full-range studied (0–14). The performance of the optical disposable sensor was tested for pH measurement, validating the results against a potentiometric reference procedure. The proposed method is quick, inexpensive, selective and sensitive and produces results similar to other more complex optical approaches for broad pH sensing.