Abstract:

By using light sensors of the cellphone, we build a simple photometer which can be used in quantitative analysis experiments. We have performed 5 replicate measurements of iron with phenanthroline to verify reproducibility and stability. We find the absorbance of the sample has a good linear relationship with the concentrations of iron with a R² value around 0.999 and the RSD of 2.81%. The result is 4.94 μg·mL^-1 with spectrophotometer and 5.11 μg·mL^-1 with our photometer. The photometer is simple, convenient, accurate and realistic by using a phone as detector, which can replace the traditional spectrophotometer in the laboratory class. The students can enhance their understanding of the structure and principle of spectrophotometer by the DIY photometer experiment.

Key words: Photometer, Self-built, Light sensor of cellphone