Toward Automatic Water Pollution Analysis: A Machine Learning Approach for Water-Quality Monitoring Through Pattern Classification of Water Crystallization

Abstract

Heavy metal contamination in drinking water and water resources is one of the problems generated by increasing water demand and growing industrialization. Heavy metals can be toxic to humans and other living beings when their intake surpasses a certain threshold. Generally, heavy metal contamination analysis of water resources requires qualified experts with specialized equipment. In this paper, we introduce a method for citizen-based water-quality monitoring through simple pattern classification of water crystallization using a smartphone and portable microscope. This work is a first step toward the development of a Water Expert System smartphone application that will provide the ability to analyze water resource contamination remotely by sending images to the database and receiving an automatic analysis of the sample via machine learning software. In this study, we show the ability of the method to detect Fe 2 mg/1 L, 5 mg/L,10 mg/L polluted distilled water compared with other heavy metals (Al, Pb) pollution. The experimental results show that the classification used method has an accuracy greater than 90%.