Connor Grossman

ECE 480 Senior Design - Team 8

MSU College of Engineering
March 23, 2015

Design and Implementation of a Detergent Sensor

Abstract
This is an overview of a content detection sensor for a whirlpool washing machine
dispenser cup. A reason for a content detection is to make a more efficient washing machine in
the end will save the user money. This will focus on what type of sensor can be used to detect
when an empty dispenser cup is fill with any sort of content. Furthermore, certain component
values will need to be picked in order for our sensor to perform at an optimal level.

Keywords
Light emitting diode (LED), photon, photoresistor, photoconductivity, semiconductor, cadmium
sulfide (CdS), electroluminescence.

Introduction
The most feasible and effective way to detect contents in a dispenser cup has deemed to
be a light sensor. With a light source at one end of the cup and a light emitting source at the
other, the liquid or powder detergent will cause a change in the intensity of the light. This can be
detected and therefore tell the washing machine that the dispenser cup is filled. Not only is the
design of a light sensor simple but it can be very reliable and accurate for the needs of this
project. With the intensity of the light changing once contents are added to the cup, the light
senor will cause a change in the voltage at the load. This change in voltage was noticeable
through testing which makes the integration of a microcontroller to sense this change possible.
The design of a light sensor can also be used in the rough conditions (vibrations and
temperatures) of the washing machine which is a key factor in choosing this route.

Choosing a Sensor Design

The light sensing concept consists of emitting light through the contents inside the
dispenser cup. In mind of keeping our design simple and cost effective we decided to go with a
LED as our light source and a photoresistor as our light detector (figure 1). Using this design the
only components needed are two different resistors, a photoresistor, a LED and a voltage supply.
Only needing five total components in total can keep the total cost to a minimum and also gives
us a chance to experiment with different parts and values for these parts. With the design of this
sensor being very straight forwards it provides very accurate readings with minimal failure. A
very accurate sensor is detrimental to the costumer since the washing machine is used in rough
condition. Violent vibrations, residual moisture, temperature flux and chemical corrosion are the
external factors that can possibly cause our sensor to fail. By using the suggested design, these

factors will have an insignificant effect on our light source and photoresistor in detecting a
change in the intensity of the light source.

Figure 1 Light sensor design

How Light Sensing Works

In our design, the device sensing the light is the photoresistor. The light from the LED is
essentially what the photoresistor is constantly monitoring and it told to the user by the changing
value in it's resistance. Well how and why is light effecting the resistor? The answer to that is
photoconductiviy, this is the driving principle behind the photoresistor. Photoconductivity is the
electrical phenomenon in which a material becomes more electrically conductive due to the
absorption of electromagnetic radiation of light. The next question may be, what material of the
resistor give it the photoconductive properties? The material that makes this possible is an
inorganic chemical called cadmium sulfide (CdS). This chemical is intrinsic when

undoped,meaning that photons excite the valence electrons across the band gap to become
conductive electrons. This process is seen for the chemical equation when cadmium sulfide and
light are combined (figure 2).

CdS +hv e+hole

Figure 2 Chemical equation for cadmium sulfide and light

When light strikes the surface of the cadmium sulfide the electrons get a boost in energy and hop
across a band gap of 2.4 volts and move free (figure 3). In the graph from figure three you can

Figure 3 Energy band diagram for CdS

see the x-axis the electric potential and the y-axis is the energy of the photon, at 2.4 volts the
photon's energy is excited and the value of it increases rapidly. In addition to the electron
roaming free, it also crates a hole that is technically positively charged and wants to be filled by
any electron making the composition of the material impure and causes the conductivity to rise.

In terms of the resistor current can flow easier through it making a very low resistance in light
and a very high resistance in the dark. The cadmium sulfide is made into a thin track the runs
across the electrodes and then connects to the terminals of the resistor (figure 4). This makes
photoresistors a passive element so it doesn't have a P-N junction. Since cadmium sulfide isn't so
why is it the most commonly used material? This is due to special properties if cadmium sulfide.

Figure 4 Structure of a photoresistor

One of the key properties of the how the frequency of the light affects its conductivity. It just so
happens that cadmium sulfide is most conductive in visible light with a peak sensitivity between
560-600 nm, which is blue light (figure 5).
The other half of the light sensor is the light source, in our case the light source is a light
emitting diode (LED). A LED is a two lead semiconductor light source consisting of a P-N
junction that only lets current flow in one. Since current can only flow in one direction giving it
the ability to change alternating current into direct current. The light is created by the movement
of electrons across a semiconductor by a phenomenon called electroluminescence. The light
comes from electromagnetic radiation as the electrons are flow through the semiconductor, this

Figure 5 Detectivity vs. wavelength for CdS

electromagnetic radiation is what the human picks up as visible light (figure 6). The
electromagnetic radiation is in the form of photons.

Figure 6 P-N junction

Conclusion
All in all, light sensors can be build in many different types of ways. For our
project we feel that the LED photoresistor combo will be the most cost effective and
efficient. The light sensor will be used to determine what substance is currently in a
dispenser cup of a washing machine. When the substance is poured into the cup is will
alter the intensity of the light detected by the photoresistor, usually lowering in intensity
which gives a rise in voltage across the photoresistor. Depending on how much the
voltage increases we will hopefully be able to tell the substance in the dispenser cup.