A Compact Microcontrolled Microfluidic System for Photometric Determination of Phosphate in Natural Water Samples

Abstract

A compact environmentally friendly microcontrolled microfluidic device ideal for in situ phosphate determination was developed based on a microsystem based on low-temperature co-fired ceramics (LTCC) coupled to a light-emitting diode (LED)–photometer with a multicommutation flow analysis (MCFA) approach. The experimental parameters of the MCFA analyzer were optimized by chemometric studies. Under the best experimental conditions, limits of detection and quantification of 0.02 mg P L–1 and 0.07 mg P L–1, respectively, and a sampling frequency of 67 h–1 were estimated. Moreover, a low sample consumption of only 60 μL per determination was the other advantage that fully meets the requirements of sustainable research and green chemistry purposes.