Journal of Modern Optics

ISSN: 0950-0340 (Print) 1362-3044 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tmop20

A novel experimental set-up for turbidity sensing

based on plastic optical fibre

Ítalo Alvarenga, Felipe S. Delgado, Marco Aurélio Jucá, Daniel D. Silveira,

Thiago V. N. Coelho & Alexandre S. Bessa

To cite this article: Ítalo Alvarenga, Felipe S. Delgado, Marco Aurélio Jucá, Daniel D.
Silveira, Thiago V. N. Coelho & Alexandre S. Bessa (2016): A novel experimental set-
up for turbidity sensing based on plastic optical fibre, Journal of Modern Optics, DOI:
10.1080/09500340.2016.1224940

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500340.2016.1224940

Published online: 19 Aug 2016.

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Journal of Modern Optics, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500340.2016.1224940

A novel experimental set-up for turbidity sensing based on plastic optical fibre
Ítalo Alvarenga, Felipe S. Delgado, Marco Aurélio Jucá, Daniel D. Silveira, Thiago V. N. Coelho and
Alexandre S. Bessa

Electrical Engineering Department, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

A novel set-up for remote sensing the turbidity of a solution using plastic optical fibres together with Received 7 April 2016
a mirror is proposed. The authors have estimated turbidity of a liquid in terms of the nephelometric Accepted 9 August 2016
turbidity unit – NTU, a standard unit that relates the solution appearance with its turbidity for two
KEYWORDS
proposed set-ups. Its performance was also investigated using clay sample measurements over Turbidity sensor; plastic
a concentration range of 0–10  g/L. The proposed set-ups are useful for detection of suspended optical fibres; fibre optic
particles in a solution even in small quantities due to its high sensitivity, simplicity and robustness. sensor; light scattering;
suspended particles

1. Introduction total suspended solids – TSS, defined as all the suspended

particles in the liquid that would not pass through a filter,
The analysis of turbidity is the study of the optical proper-
given in mg/L. Furthermore, the turbidity of a liquid can
ties that result in scattering and absorption of light, caus-
be defined in terms of the nephelometric turbidity unit
ing a reduction of liquid transparency. Thus, the direction
(NTU), which relates a solution’s clearness and turbidity
of light trajectory changes when particles are present in the
to a standard measure in NTU (5). The relation between
liquid, reflecting the incident optical beam. If the turbidity
these two parameters is given by Equation (1).
level is low, less light is scattered away from its original
direction. Light scattered by particles as silt, clay, algae, NTU = a(TSS)b (1)
organic matter and micro-organisms may allow the detec-
where a and b are constants defined according to the
tion of their concentration in water (1).
­suspended particle in the solution (7).
Currently, there are commercial turbidity sensors for
To analyse turbidity, two set-ups of optical turbidi-
the detection of suspended particles in solutions (2, 3);
meters were developed in the lab using a laser pointing
however, their uses involve complexity in the installation
directly to the experimental sample of clay with concen-
of instruments and several calibrations for different envi-
tration varying from 0 to 10 g/L in a beaker with 250 mL
ronments. Also, their durability is limited by their elec-
of pure water. In both set-ups, POFs with core diameter
tronic components (4).
of 1000 μm were used. The measurements were made in
Many optical fibre applications have been employed to
an isolated environment at room temperature. The meas-
measuring turbidity in a liquid and particle concentration
urements were performed using a red laser with typical
(2, 5, 6). The detection of scattered light with optical fibres
wavelength of 650 nm and 18 mW power, and repeated
can increase turbidity measurement sensitivity throughout
for a green laser with typical wavelength of 532 nm and
great concentration ranges and avoids certain problems of
20 mW power.
conventional turbidimeters. Therefore, a new model of turbi-
Two different configurations were used in our
dimeter is proposed, which uses plastic optical fibres (POFs)
­experiments. The first one was built with two POFs and
together with a mirror, in order to develop a turbidity sensi-
a concave mirror with focal length of 3.41 cm at the bot-
tive system based on the collection of reflected and transmit-
tom of the beaker. The first POF was used to irradiate the
ted light through the sample, estimating its turbidity in NTU.
sample with light generated by a remote laser, working as
a probe. After the reflection on the mirror, the light was
2.  Theory and experimental set-up collected directly by the second POF and was m ­ easured
remotely afterwards using an optical power meter, as
There are several ways of analysing the turbidity of a liquid.
shown in Figure 1.
A fairly common parameter that can be measured is the

CONTACT  Thiago V. N. Coelho  thiago.coelho@ufjf.edu.br

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2    Í. Alvarenga et al.
Figure 1. Set-up used to collect light reflected by the mirror with POF.
Figure 2. Set-up used to collect scattered light at 90° from the incident beam.
The distance between the light incising the concave
mirror and the fibre is 0.7 cm. Moreover, the position of
the fibre was adjusted to place the optical fibre tip at the
mirror focus to increase the collected incident light.
A second configuration with three POFs was used to
measure turbidity due to the relation between the light
scattered and transmitted by the presence of clay particles,
as shown in Figure 2. The same procedure adopted for
the first configuration was applied, except that the mirror
was no longer used and the intensity of scattered light was
measured at a right angle from the incident beam.
3.  Results and discussion
The developed set-up was used to analyse the performance
of the sensor in two principles of turbidity evaluation, in
conditions of reflected and scattered light. The turbidity
was estimated in terms of the NTU, using (1) and related
to the values of optical power obtained from the tests with
samples of clay varying from 0 to 10  g/L, as shown in
Table 1.
In particular, clay is an important measurement tur-
bidity factor. Their concentration can be responsible to
transport metal particles and organic compounds in water
Table 1. Parameters used for simulation.
Suspended particles in
concentration (g/L) NTU
0 0
1 0,7733
2 1,47,703
3 2,15,669
4 2,82,118
5 3,47,461
6 4,11,936
8 5,38,856
10 6,63,664
sample. Also, clay can play an important role in silting of
fish spawning beds and disturbance of water habitats (8).
Figure 3 shows the results for the configurations of
reflected and scattered light using optical sources with
distinct wavelengths.
The results for the first set-up clearly show that the
650 nm has a more collected power, because higher size
particles spread.
Figures 4 and 5 show red and green laser response
towards the intensity of reflected light by the mirror and
collected by the POF. Both responses decrease as the NTU
or concentration of clay particles increases. Thus, these
 Journal of Modern Optics   3

systems can best be described by exponential models in

accordance with Beer–Lambert Law.
In the second set of experiments conducted, two power
meters were used to obtain different measurements of
received light. The first one provided transmittance meas-
urement (0° scattering), while the second is 90° scattering.
The same behaviour was found for the second set-up,
as the concentration of clay particles increased the power
of scattered light measured decreased. Thus, the measure-
ment results were fitted by exponential models, as well as
the first set-up. Response curves and exponential fitting
for the second set-up are depicted in Figures 6 and 7.
Table 2 shows the response equations fitted with respective
coefficient of determination for red and green laser.
Comparing and contrasting the results shown in
Table 2, it is evident that the proposed model of
Figure 3.  Received optical power as a function of estimated
turbidity in NTU for the samples of clay in the configurations of
scattered and reflected light.

Figure 6.  Response curve and exponential model with varying

concentrations of clay related to the ratio between scattered and
Figure 4.  Response curve and exponential model with varying transmitted light at 650 nm.
concentrations of clay for reflected light at 650 nm.

Figure 7.  Response curve and exponential model with varying

Figure 5.  Response curve and exponential model with varying concentrations of clay related to the ratio between scattered and
concentrations of clay for reflected light at 523 nm. transmitted light at 532 nm.
4    Í. Alvarenga et al.
Table 2. Red and Green response equation.
Reflected system response Red (650 nm) Green (532 nm)
y = 0,9951e−0,65029x y = 1,0203e−0,49179x
R2 0993 0992
Scattered system response Red (650 nm) Green (532 nm)
y = 1,0446e−0,34303x y = 1,0796e−0,32894x
R2 0928 0961
turbidimeter with POFs showed a better rate of extinction
for the samples used in the test for all ranges of particle
concentration or NTU, and also presented the highest
attenuation coefficient, thus allowing a better identifica-
tion of the turbidity and of the presence of clay particles
in the solution.
The second set-up due to the ratiometric technique
(ratio between the transmitted and scattered light) is
insensitivity to the noise due to any optical source inten-
sity fluctuations. This characteristic plays an important
role to increase the resolution and the reliability in the
measurement set-up.
Because of the test results and comparisons above-
­mentioned, the configuration for reflected light can be
defined as a standard for measurement of the turbidimeter
results. The signal attenuation throughout the range of
particle concentration showed interesting results, as the
values of measured optical power show coherence and
distinction between the concentrations, thus resulting in
a simple, robust, sensitive instrument for the detection of
turbidity in solutions.
4. Conclusions
The higher sensitivity observed in both set-ups for a deter-
mined range of concentration of undissolved solids is due
to the fact that both present a low variation of external
interference. This characteristic reduces the error rate of
collected data. Furthermore, for the first set-up, it is noted
that the laser beams of both wavelengths follow a long
path inside the samples of water, increasing the sensitivity
rate provided by the set-up.
On the other hand, observing the second set-up, a
higher sensitivity is noted in comparison to other exper-
iments. This behaviour occurs due to the fact that the posi-
tion of the power meter’s light sensor was strategically
adjusted to receive the highest amount of light due to
different concentration of undissolved solids. In other
words, the adjusted position of the light sensors allowed
a higher variation of scattered light. Thus, it follows that,
for the second set-up, the variations in the light sensor
position are determinant for the set-up sensitivity. A good
robustness was achieved for the set-up, thus, the device
can be used in places with little mechanic vibrations; it
is a set-up with little sensitivity to external disturbances.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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