Detection of ions in water using electrostatic induction

Abstract

Water contains a huge amount of ions and charged particles which may or may not be beneficial to human body. Some ions present in water are good for health and needed to maintain our metabolism process, while some other ions are harmful to human body and they should be detected. The purpose of this Final Year Project (FYP) is to sense the concentration of charged par- ticles in water using an electrostatic induction technique to determine the concentration of charged particles in water and if the water is safe for drinking. This project focuses on the study of electrostatic induction of charged particles in water sample. Through the study, an electrostatic induction technique will be developed to de- tect the charged particle concentration. The detection device consists of a polypropylene cup and a metal electrode. During the experiments, a polypropylene cup was used to con- tain water samples and the ions would be attracted to the surface of the polypropylene cup, leading to the surface charge density change, which is then detected by the metal electrode through electrostatic induction. In this project, several water samples including distilled(DI) water and tap water have been studied.