Continuous, on Site Spectrophotometric Determination of Zinc ions in Water Laboratory test preliminary to microfluidic device prototyping

Main parameters of the Zincon method for spectrophotometrical detection of Zn (II) metal ions in water were optimized for application on a miniaturized and portable device, for continuous monitoring of water pollution. The aim was the reduction of involved volumes, manageable by a microfluidic device, the choice of suitable solvents and buffers, the optimization of reagents amounts and aging times and the irradiation of the sample by a single wavelength visible source. The influence of each parameter was investigated individually with respect to a reference method; finally, all the optimized values were merged and verified on a bench prototype to test any possible mutual effect.