Cheap method to measure medications in contaminated water

 Iranian researchers from University of Tabriz, in association with a researcher from South Korea, designed a chemical fluorescent method for the measurement of medications in biological or medical samples by using quantum dots.

The system has high sensitivity and accuracy and can take the place of convenient expensive methods due to its low cost.

Medications may be found at low concentrations in surface water or wastewater. Therefore, sensitive analytical methods are required to measure these materials in biological samples. These methods require very specialized equipment, time and expenses.

The main objective of the research was to present a new chemical fluorescent injection system based on cadmium sulfide quantum dots. The performance of the system was evaluated in the measurement of baclofen medication in medical and aqueous samples as an environmental contamination. This way, a novel, cheap, quick, sensitive, and simple system was presented to measure baclofen in medial and aqueous samples.

Taking into consideration the success of the system at laboratorial scale, it seems that it can be a good replacement for the expensive chemical fluorescent indicators, and it can be used in different matrices to measure various materials.

Results of the research showed that the distribution of particle size increases as time goes by, and as a result, the intensity of chemical fluorescent emission increases too. The injection chemical fluorescent system has higher sensitivity and accuracy in comparison with ion movement spectroscopy method with corona discharge ionization source.

Results of the research have been published in Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, vol. 215, issue 1, 2015, pp. 272-282.