The Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy Technique - 3 Case Studies in chemical and biological materials.

Abstract

Innovation is currently the most common word in scientific publications. The day life lack of time is responsible for the need of quick and accurate methods to solve problems. Three areas of interest arose: public health, related to waste water contaminants quick detection is needed; plastic industry with the need of maximum plastic bottles quality and its required accurate moisture quantifier to set if the Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) pellets need to be dried; medical instrumentation with the need to detect the presence of Plasmodium Falciparum in blood samples to rapid diagnosis of malaria disease which had an incidence estimated in 200 million cases in 2013. The aim of this project is to develop a portable, easy to use and accurate system, that presents also high sensibility to: waste-water contamination study; access the PET drying necessity; hemozoin detection. This device must be relatively cheap and easily replicated. To meet the above requirements, the method under study is based on Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS). During the last decade, investigation in these three areas promoted the creation of innovative methods. The advantage of the device under study compared to the methods currently used are the low price associated and the low level of skills required. This properties makes it suitable to be used without place and price worries. EIS revealed to be an accurate method in order to distinguish material composition for the cases under study. Future work is expected to turn the device portable and autonomous.