Contaminated water is currently the cause of many diseases in most countries of the world. Now with the help of a smartphone camera, the rate of pollution in the water can be estimated, but the University of Singapore has developed an excellent technique for this.
It is said that 30% of hospital beds in developing countries are filled with patients infected with contaminated water. The University of Singapore, with the help of a company called Design, has developed a method of testing untreated water in lakes and ponds by monitoring the movement of water microbiota through a smartphone camera. The study is published in Scientific Reports.
This system works in minutes in which the fast or slow movement of a single-celled organism paramedic in water is noted. This organism is common in the waters of the world. Experts first noticed the speed of paramecium in clean water. He then swam it in various polluted waters. It was found that the speed of paramecium varies in the presence of various contaminants. Based on this, a scale was set and the smartphone camera was modified to enable it to detect the speed of a single-celled animal.
As heavy metals and antibiotics were added to the water, the movement of paramecium changed. Experimentally, a microscopic lens was fitted to the smartphone camera, which showed the paramecium. Then their speed was measured with an algorithm. It turns out that the slower the paramecium swims, the more polluted the water becomes. That is, its speed was halved in water with heavy metals.
This is a straightforward and simple method that says a lot about whether water is drinkable or unusable, says research scientist Javier Fernandez. Paramedics are found in waters around the world and their speed can be used as a measure of water pollution.
