Sensors for plastic detection

[eurricane]

What Arduino sensors can we use for plastic detection? Our research aims to develop a prototype that could detect plastic materials. We plan to mount the prototype with the sensor on the water surface to detect plastic materials found underneath the surface. Can you suggest Arduino sensors that would do the work? Thank you!

[srturner]

This will be a tough row to hoe. Sensors work by detecting some predictable property or event. Light sensors detect EM radiation of a certain range. Microphones detect acoustical wave pressures. Temperature sensors detect temperature. What property of "plastics" do you propose to detect? Polymers are extremely variable. They can be transparent or opaque, of any color. They can be rigid or flexible. The vary hugely in density and chemical composition. They can be any shape and size imaginable. There is nothing predictable about them. Even human beings, using all of their senses and with the aid of a hugely sophisticated processor (the brain) cannot always reliably detect a plastic without some experimentation.
S.

[jremington]

Sorry, there is no such thing as a "plastic sensor".

To see why, spend some time researching how many different types of materials are called "plastic".

[Paul_KD7HB]

What Arduino sensors can we use for plastic detection? Our research aims to develop a prototype that could detect plastic materials. We plan to mount the prototype with the sensor on the water surface to detect plastic materials found underneath the surface. Can you suggest Arduino sensors that would do the work? Thank you!

What is your budget?
Paul

[MarkT]

What Arduino sensors can we use for plastic detection? Our research aims to develop a prototype that could detect plastic materials. We plan to mount the prototype with the sensor on the water surface to detect plastic materials found underneath the surface. Can you suggest Arduino sensors that would do the work? Thank you!

Unless your plastic is highly radiactive and the water's shallow there's no way to do this that I know of.