Biosensors (Oct 2021)

Probing Individual Particles in Aquatic Suspensions by Simultaneously Measuring Polarized Light Scattering and Fluorescence

  • Zhihang Xiong,
  • Hongjian Wang,
  • Jiajin Li,
  • Ran Liao,
  • Haoji Mai,
  • Caizhong Guan,
  • Zhiming Guo,
  • Shangpan Yang,
  • Yan Chen,
  • Biwang Liu,
  • Tong Liu,
  • Hongyi Li,
  • Wenzheng Ding,
  • Yaguang Zeng,
  • Hui Ma

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/bios11110416
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 11
p. 416

Abstract

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Suspended particles play a significant role in aquatic systems. However, existing methods to probe suspended particles have several limitations. In this paper, we present a portable prototype to in situ probe individual particles in aquatic suspensions by simultaneously measuring polarized light scattering and fluorescence, aiming to obtain an effective classification of microplastics and microalgae. Results show that the obtained classification accuracy is significantly higher than that for either of these two methods. The setup also successfully measures submicron particles and discriminates two species of Synechococcus. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of simultaneously measuring polarized light scattering and fluorescence, and the promising capability of our method for further aquatic environmental monitoring.

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