TY - GEN
T1 - U-bend evanescent wave plastic optical fibre sensor for minute level concentration detection of ethanol corresponding to biofuel production rate
AU - Memon, Sanober F.
AU - Lewis, Elfed
AU - Ali, Muhammad M.
AU - Pembroke, J. Tony
AU - Chowdhry, Bhawani S.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 IEEE.
PY - 2017/4/6
Y1 - 2017/4/6
N2 - Biofuel processing applications require concentration measurement of bio-ethanol during its evolution by algae in a proprietary chemical process to optimize the chemical parameters and the resulting yield of bio-ethanol. The production rate of bio-ethanol is initially very low with correspondingly minute concentration changes. This study presents a highly sensitive U-bend evanescent wave plastic optical fibre sensor for ethanol concentration measurement in water corresponding to the production rate limit of bio-ethanol by algae (cyanobacteria) i.e. 0.1-0.5g per liter per day or 0.0126%v/v-0.0633%v/v in terms of percent volume concentration of a solution or %volume/volume concentration. The sensor was fabricated using low cost, large core (1000μm diameter) plastic optical fibre (POF) and investigated in the broadband visible light spectrum (VIS) and specifically at 630nm wavelength. Real-time measurements show that the sensor provides a significant response in the range of 0.00633%v/v to 0.0633%v/v concentration of ethanol in water which corresponds to detection of change in refractive index as low as 10-7. Moreover, sensitivity of sensor was derived for the above range as 0.6448 O.D/%v/v with 97.14% of linearity in results at 630nm wavelength, here O.D refers to optical density - unit of absorbance. It indicates that the proposed sensor represents a viable solution for real time and very low level concentration sensing in biofuel processing applications.
AB - Biofuel processing applications require concentration measurement of bio-ethanol during its evolution by algae in a proprietary chemical process to optimize the chemical parameters and the resulting yield of bio-ethanol. The production rate of bio-ethanol is initially very low with correspondingly minute concentration changes. This study presents a highly sensitive U-bend evanescent wave plastic optical fibre sensor for ethanol concentration measurement in water corresponding to the production rate limit of bio-ethanol by algae (cyanobacteria) i.e. 0.1-0.5g per liter per day or 0.0126%v/v-0.0633%v/v in terms of percent volume concentration of a solution or %volume/volume concentration. The sensor was fabricated using low cost, large core (1000μm diameter) plastic optical fibre (POF) and investigated in the broadband visible light spectrum (VIS) and specifically at 630nm wavelength. Real-time measurements show that the sensor provides a significant response in the range of 0.00633%v/v to 0.0633%v/v concentration of ethanol in water which corresponds to detection of change in refractive index as low as 10-7. Moreover, sensitivity of sensor was derived for the above range as 0.6448 O.D/%v/v with 97.14% of linearity in results at 630nm wavelength, here O.D refers to optical density - unit of absorbance. It indicates that the proposed sensor represents a viable solution for real time and very low level concentration sensing in biofuel processing applications.
KW - Algae
KW - Biofuel Production
KW - Ethanol Concentration Sensing
KW - Evanescent Wave Principle
KW - Plastic Optical Fibre (POF)
KW - U-bend Sensor
KW - Visible light spectrum (VIS)
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85018283457&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/SAS.2017.7894101
DO - 10.1109/SAS.2017.7894101
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85018283457
T3 - SAS 2017 - 2017 IEEE Sensors Applications Symposium, Proceedings
BT - SAS 2017 - 2017 IEEE Sensors Applications Symposium, Proceedings
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 12th IEEE Sensors Applications Symposium, SAS 2017
Y2 - 13 March 2017 through 15 March 2017
ER -