Question: Is Lego Spectrometer Kit able to detect Glucose?

kokoz is asking a question about general
Follow this topic

by kokoz | November 14, 2018 19:04 | #17554


I'm trying to figure out how to detect Glucose using spectrophotometry in urine. There are some papers that describe very accurate readings using near-infrared spectrophotometry but as far as I understand it's measured between the 1300-2500nm wavelengths. I wonder if it's somehow achievable using the kit, perhaps with a different camera?

Thoughts?

Here are some papers I've read:



4 Comments

I don't know about glucose, but this post notes how to detect sugar (sucrose, i guess?) in wine: https://publiclab.org/notes/ygzstc/07-23-2014/detection-of-added-sugar-in-red-wine-using-visual-light-spectroscopy

Is this a question? Click here to post it to the Questions page.

I think the sucrose is in different wavelenghts? in human body sucrose is broken down in to glucose..

Is this a question? Click here to post it to the Questions page.


Reply to this comment...


Both glucose and sucrose solutions are colourless so visible light is not going to work. A homemade spectrometer will not go very far into the UV , but will go up to about 950 nm in the IR - I'm not sure if either glucose or sucrose will absorb there. The more obvious way to detect sugars is by optical rotation using a polarimeter. I think it should be faily easy to make a polarimeter though its accuracy may be limited.

Reply to this comment...


Another good way to quantitate sugars is with a refractometer. They are pretty cheap and often used in wineries.

Reply to this comment...


Log in to comment