A simple homemade spectrophotometer

A simple portable spectrophotometer was constructed and used to perform analytical experiments. The developed model uses available tools and materials such as light emitting diode lamps, compact discs, plastic and cardboard boxes and a cell phone camera to build a design that illustrates the major components of spectrophotometers. The spectra of serial concentrations of KMnO4 (50‒600 μM) were recorded and the values of absorbance were extracted at λmax to build the calibration curve. A linear relationship between the concentration and absorbance was obtained with the coefficient of determination 0.994. The model was also utilized to study the spectra of KMnO4, phenolphthalein and bromothymol blue in comparison with a Shimadzu UV-1800 spectrophotometer as a reference instrument. In spite of the differences in the observed spectra, the recorded λmax were almost identical to those measured by the developed model. The model was successfully used to determine the concentration of sodium alendronate through ligand-exchange complexation with ferric salicylate.