International Journal of

Detection of fuel adulteration in real time is the most important need of the world as it generates the hazardous effects on the environment, living and nonliving things. Various automotive users and fuel providers may mix kerosene in petrol and diesel. Adulterated fuel increases air pollution, as well as reduces the performance of vehicle engines. Such a malpractice in fuel is prevailing because vehicles do not have real time adulteration monitoring system. In this study, we propose evanescent wave optical fiber sensor, which is interfaced with peripheral interface controller (PIC) to detect fuel adulteration percentage by means of change in refractive index. A fuel sensor prototype is formulated and tested to detect adulteration percentage in petrol and diesel by kerosene. The sensor is useful as it has simple construction, real time operation, and safety handling with inflammable fuel for in-situ measurements. The sensors have detectable capacity of 5% contaminant in petrol and diesel using evanescent wave absorption technique. Other traditional techniques are able to detect presence of about more than 10 % of fuel adulteration only in the laboratory. PIC is used with a fuel sensor for incorporating an automation and sophistication in automotive display, so that it is more useful to layman.