D-shaped Plastic Optical Fiber Sensor for Detection of Ethanol Fuel Adulteration

Abstract

Modern society, increasingly concerned about all the environmental impacts related to the production and use of petroleum-derived fuels, has sought alternative solutions to mitigate these impacts. From this context, ethanol produced from plants such as sugarcane is an important alternative to petroleum-derived fuels and research on production improvement, quality control and other related topics are common in the literature. This work proposes a device based on D-shaped plastic optical fiber to measure the water content mixed into ethanol. This measure is an important quality parameter to guide production and a common way to evaluate any possible adulteration.