A microplasma optical emission spectrometry pen for point-of-care diagnosis of child blood lead

Blood lead levels (BLL) of children have attracted considerable attention due to their putative impact on intelligence decline. However, most methods used for the determination of blood lead typically require expensive, bulky, high power and gas consuming instrumentation, limiting their application for a point-of-care diagnosis. Herein we report the development and testing of a portable ballpoint discharge microplasma optical emission spectrometer (BD-OES pen) device having the potential to fill this needed measurement capability. The BD-OES pen utilizes a compact ballpoint-pen format integrating point-discharge microplasma, which permits the determination of child BLL requiring no more than 100 μL blood while providing high specificity, sensitivity and satisfactory limit of detection (0.73 μg L−1). The handheld BD-OES pen is successfully used to diagnose BLL of 16 asymptomatic children on-site, two of whom had excessive the normal BLL. The pen may aid the on-site and rapid diagnosis of childhood BLL, particularly in low-income areas.