what type of sensor should i use whose function is modifiable through coding?
i just wanted to make a microplastic detector sensor for our research.
seeking for help. thank you
What aspect or feature of "microplastic" do you plan to detect?
How will that aspect or feature make "microplastic" different from anything else the sensor might encounter?
Perhaps it would help to explain how you distinguish microplastic from other things.
in our study we have 2 samples:
a.) NaCl (aqueous solution) - in this sample we are going to filter out the water so the microplastics will be separated from it. we want to detect the filtered microplastic itself.
is it possible to detect the microplastic without filtering the NaCl aqueous solution using a particular sensor?
b.) NaCl (solid form) - in this sample we planned to detect the microplastic in salt through its color properties. furthermore, salt has different heat capacity from microplastics, so it is possible to determine whether there's a microplastic in salt in terms of temperature.
what type of sensors should we use in detecting the microplastics in sample a and b?
which sample do you think would be easier for the sensor to detect easily?
can you give more suggestions on what properties should we focus on detecting the microplastics and what kind of sensors should we use.
we accept all suggestions and advices.
P.S. (sorry, i am not knowledgeable enough in robotics because i was actually assigned in life science in research last school years).
Thank you very much for replying! 
you'll help us a lot.
Please answer the questions in reply #1.
There is a somewhat parallel discussion on the topic with another member of the group doing this project here:
http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=564638
@ pert
Yes, she is my research mate in this study.
I just want to make sure that all the information is available to anyone participating in the discussion. Typically we prefer to have only one thread per topic. It's not clear to me whether these threads are each about a separate approach to the problem, in which case it might be reasonable to have two. Otherwise it would be better for them to be merged.
@ jremington
We just want to detect the presence of microplastic itself in the salt through its physical form. Also, we have a theory that we can detect the microplastic through its temperature because plastic and salt have different heat capacity. But we don't really know if it is possible to detect microplastic.