Quality assessment of automotive fuel and oil-improving environmental sustainability

Abstract Ethanol as a radical scavenger being non-lead additive to fuel can act as quality improver as well as range extender, which abates the COx emission and helps to improve air quality. Its limited concentration in blended fuels is beneficial, whereas, higher percentage of ethanol damage automotive fuel lines. Thus, a sensor system has been designed for evaluating the quality of ethanol blended gasoline by utilizing molecular imprinting technique in combination with transducers such as quartz crystal microbalances (QCMs). Moreover, a low cost miniaturized device based on interdigital transducers (IDTs) has also been developed for characterizing ethanol/gasoline mixtures. Acrylic acid and sodium p-styrene sulfonate polyelectrolytes as sensitive layers on IDT enable us to detect different percentages of polar ethanol in non-polar gasoline hydrocarbons by resistive measurements. Another step in improving environmental situation is achieved by characterizing the lubricating oil to determine an optimal time of oil change. Mass-sensitive devices are also tuned by utilizing molecular imprinting approach to analyze the octane number of fuel by differentiating the isomers iso-octane and n-octane.

[1]  J. Gaffney,et al.  The search for clean alternative fuels: There's no such thing as a free lunch! , 1990 .

[2]  Usman Latif,et al.  Conductometric Sensors for Monitoring Degradation of Automotive Engine Oil† , 2011, Sensors.

[3]  F. Toyoda,et al.  Effect of exhaust from alcohol fuel on ozone formation in the atmosphere , 1991 .

[4]  S. Garrigues,et al.  Vapour generation-Fourier transform infrared spectrometric determination of benzene, toluene and methyl tert.-butyl ether in gasolines , 1996 .

[5]  S. Anderson.  The Demand for Ethanol as a Gasoline Substitute , 2010 .

[6]  Havva Balat,et al.  Recent trends in global production and utilization of bio-ethanol fuel , 2009 .

[7]  J. Callis,et al.  Determination of alcohols in gasoline/alcohol blends by nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry , 1985 .

[8]  R L Mason,et al.  Analysis of Gasolines by FT-IR Spectroscopy. , 1996, Analytical chemistry.

[9]  Ferenc Horkay,et al.  Clustering and Solvation in Poly(acrylic acid) Polyelectrolyte Solutions , 2005 .

[10]  T. B. Mcwilliams,et al.  Determination of ethanol in gasohol by infrared spectrometry , 1981 .

[11]  D. Fichou,et al.  A solvatochromic dye-doped polymer for detection of polar additives in hydrocarbon blends , 1995 .

[12]  S. Sukhishvili,et al.  Polymer-metal complexes in polyelectrolyte multilayer films as catalysts for oxidation of toluene. , 2012, Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids.

[13]  R. Schirhagl,et al.  Atrazine detection based on antibody replicas , 2011 .

[14]  Beatrice Gralton,et al.  Washington DC - USA , 2008 .

[15]  G. Streit,et al.  Atmospheric chemistry of aldehydes: enhanced peroxyacetyl nitrate formation from ethanol-fueled vehicular emissions. , 1988, Environmental science & technology.

[16]  Franz L Dickert,et al.  Bioimprinted QCM sensors for virus detection—screening of plant sap , 2004, Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry.

[17]  Theory of Polyelectrolyte Solutions , 1996, cond-mat/9601022.

[18]  Brent D. Yacobucci.  Fuel Ethanol: Background and Public Policy Issues , 2013 .

[19]  F. Dickert,et al.  Synthetic receptors for chemical sensors--subnano- and micrometre patterning by imprinting techniques. , 2004, Biosensors & bioelectronics.

[20]  M. Maricq,et al.  Soot formation in ethanol/gasoline fuel blend diffusion flames , 2012 .

[21]  Luca Francioso,et al.  Metal oxide gas sensor array for the detection of diesel fuel in engine oil , 2008 .

[22]  Ae Ja Kim,et al.  High-resolution NMR process analyzer for oxygenates in gasoline , 1994 .

[23]  S. Jain,et al.  Estimation of Oxygenates in Gasoline by 13C NMR Spectroscopy , 1997 .

[24]  Y. Melnichenko,et al.  Polyelectrolyte chain dimensions and concentration fluctuations near phase boundaries , 2003 .

[25]  Kathleen E. Halvorsen,et al.  Grain and cellulosic ethanol: History, economics, and energy policy , 2007 .

[26]  Thomas D. Durbin,et al.  Impacts of ethanol fuel level on emissions of regulated and unregulated pollutants from a fleet of gasoline light-duty vehicles , 2012 .

[27]  D. Rice,et al.  Will ethanol-blended gasoline affect groundwater quality? , 2001, Environmental science & technology.

[28]  Peter A. Lieberzeit,et al.  Solvent Vapour Detection with Cholesteric Liquid Crystals—Optical and Mass-Sensitive Evaluation of the Sensor Mechanism† , 2010, Sensors.

[29]  J. K. Hardy,et al.  Determination of C1-C4 alcohols in gasoline using multiple ion detection , 1986 .

[30]  Michael J Kleeman,et al.  Measurement of emissions from air pollution sources. 5. C1-C32 organic compounds from gasoline-powered motor vehicles. , 2002, Environmental science & technology.

[31]  Franz L Dickert,et al.  Natural and biomimetic materials for the detection of insulin. , 2012, Analytical chemistry.

[32]  J. Douglas,et al.  Influence of counterion valency on the scattering properties of highly charged polyelectrolyte solutions , 2001 .

[33]  Franz L Dickert,et al.  Monitoring automotive oil degradation: analytical tools and onboard sensing technologies , 2012, Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry.

[34]  R. Moros,et al.  Determination of octane numbers of gasoline compounds from their chemical structure by 13C NMR spectroscopy and neural networks , 2001 .

[35]  R F Sawyer,et al.  Achieving Acceptable Air Quality: Some Reflections on Controlling Vehicle Emissions , 1993, Science.

[36]  R. Bilbao,et al.  Gas and soot products formed in the pyrolysis of acetylene-ethanol blends under flow reactor conditions , 2009 .

[37]  J. Sevcík.  Determination of alcohols in gasoline blends using a multi-dimensional switching system , 1980 .

[38]  Zenon Pawlak,et al.  Determination of heavy metals and volatile aromatic compounds in used engine oils and sludges , 2006 .

[39]  Thomas G. Leone,et al.  High octane number ethanol–gasoline blends: Quantifying the potential benefits in the United States , 2012 .

[40]  Frances S. Sterrett,et al.  Alternative Fuels and the Environment , 1994 .

[41]  D. Duewer,et al.  Identification and Quantitation of Oxygenates in Gasoline Ampules Using Fourier Transform Near-Infrared and Fourier Transform Raman Spectroscopy , 1996 .

[42]  Michael F. Rubner,et al.  pH-Dependent Thickness Behavior of Sequentially Adsorbed Layers of Weak Polyelectrolytes , 2000 .

[43]  Hsi-Hsien Yang,et al.  Effects of ethanol-blended gasoline on emissions of regulated air pollutants and carbonyls from motorcycles , 2012 .