AmmoniaSensor
We plan to make a simple ammonia sensor that make use of ammonia test kit. This test kit works by taking 5ml of water that you want to test and then mixed with the coloring agent that are given by the test kit. After mixing the water will develop a color which corresponds to the level of ammonia that the water had.
Contents
18 August 2022
We found a color sensor that had a potential for being used in this projects. TCS34725 sensor works by detecting red, green and blue color spectrum and intensity into signal. Based on the early testing that we got from this sensor, it was able to perceive the color difference on an object but the accuracy of the colors are dependent on how much the reflection of color could come to the sensors.
Testing Result
Using the current sensor we are going to test it directly with a sample water containing ammonia in various level from 0-8 ppm that are set to follow the color level chart from the test kit. The water is put in a clear 5ml container so we could shine light through the container to get the proper color reading.
From the experiment, we found that we could get a better reading if we used external light source than using the build in one as the source of light is too close towards the sensor which could affect the reading. We used the flashlight of our phone as our source of light and put the 5ml container above the light and have it glow through it from the bottom of the container.
Testing Setup
Testing setup w/ light
From the testing result we got the following value as seen in the graph below.
10 October 2022
Testing for ammonia at different level concentration of Ammonia from 1- 8 ppm. Redoing the test since there is a possibility of a wrong concentration that are used in the previous test.
| PPM | Colour Temp | SD |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4525 | 4.01 |
| 2 | 5624 | 15.83 |
| 3 | 7514 | 87.40 |
| 4 | 9902 | 146.18 |
| 5 | 11607 | 65.38 |
| 6 | 12787 | 485.55 |
| 7 | 16072 | 131.30 |
| 8 | 17669 | 456.84 |
Ammonia Test Bottle 10 Oct
11 October 2022
Testing the ammonia level below from 0 – 1 ppm at various level of concentration
| PPM | Colour Temp | SD |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 2588 | 3.39 |
| 0.2 | 2969 | 19.90 |
| 0.4 | 3217 | 27.75 |
| 0.5 | 3491 | 6.03 |
| 0.6 | 3601 | 13.42 |
| 0.8 | 3883 | 9.88 |
| 1.0 | 4573 | 54.60 |
Ammonia Test Bottle 11 Oct
All test that we have done so far are done with DI water. Next step we will try using water with some turbidity and see if there's a significant difference on the result.
25 October 2022
Make a new prototype case for the ammonia sensor For now the case still use a phone as a light source. The next iteration will integrade the case with an LED light source.
22 November 2022
Done testing the sensor with lake water as our new base for dilution. With this new test we also tried a new LED light that we got that could operate from 2.7V - 3V. During the testing we will also want to know if this new light source have a significant impact to the reading. For the first test we set the LED at 2.7V and the result are shown below.
the findings from this experiment are: -
