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Environmental pollution by plastics is an increasing problem. However, state-of-the-art methods have significant disadvantages in detecting and identifying plastics directly in an environmental matrix. In this study, we propose a blob detection algorithm in combination with a neural network for fast and automated identification of plastics and non-plastics in a single fluorescence lifetime image. Therefore an artificial environmental matrix is prepared that contains soil, grass, spruce and HDPE (high density polyethylene) particles. Several FD-FLIM (frequency domain fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy) images are taken, and the detection algorithm and the neural network are applied. We successfully demonstrated the suitability of the thresholding algorithm and the binary classification of the HDPE particles directly in the environmental matrix.
Previous research on identifying plastic types and differentiating plastics from environmental material is promising by utilizing the specific fluorescence lifetime, but the evaluation still has to be automated. Therefore, an automated Gaussian analysis is developed for evaluating frequency-domain fluorescence lifetime images of plastics and environmental materials. Furthermore, we applied a “Multilayer Perceptron” and “Random Forest Classifier” to the data resulting from the Gaussian analysis of the frequency domain fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy data. The classification results show high F1-scores, whereby the best “Multilayer Perceptron” and “Random Forest Classifier” achieved an F1-score of 90%. Thus, identifying and differentiating plastics and environmental materials is possible by applying a “Multilayer Perceptron” or “Random Forest Classifier” to the Gaussian-analyzed imaged fluorescence lifetime data.