Detection limit

When scientists analyze things, they sometimes need to know how much of a substance is present in a sample. But sometimes, the amount they want to measure is really tiny!

Think about trying to find a little grain of sand in a huge sandbox. It might be hard to spot, right? Well, sometimes scientists have the same problem when they're looking for small amounts of a substance in a sample.

The detection limit is the smallest amount of a substance that a scientist can see or measure. It's like the smallest amount of sand you could find in that big sandbox.

Scientists use special tools called instruments to try to measure substances in samples. Different instruments have different levels of sensitivity, which means they can detect different amounts of a substance.

If the detection limit for a substance is really low, it means the instrument is very sensitive and can find even tiny amounts of that substance in a sample. But if the detection limit for a substance is high, it means the instrument might not be very good at finding it.

So when scientists talk about the detection limit, they're talking about how good their instrument is at finding the really small amounts of a substance they're looking for.