An optical fiber based surface plasmon resonance technique for sensing of lead ions: A toxic water pollutant

Lead is a very toxic element whose presence in aqueous solutions in high concentration levels leads to several undesirable consequences. In this work, we report a detection mechanism of lead ion through an optical method. This SPR based technique measures output response of the sensor probe in terms of voltage of different analytes such as arsenic, copper, cadmium, nickel, mercury, iron and lead. The proposed sensor probe is coated with chitosan and glutathione. It is observed that this sensor probe has good voltage response for lead ions solutions in particular. This technique has limit of detection 1.3 ppb with a sensitivity of 0.28 mV/ppb. Use of optical fiber, LED and photodiode ha made this technique low cost, easily hand able and environment friendly.