PNNL

Abstract

The goal of this work was to develop a low cost, robust sensor to allow direct measurement of Solvent Red 164 dye concentration in off-road fuel at refineries and fuel terminals. Optical absorption sensors based on light emitting diodes (LEDs) are rugged, low-cost, have low power consumption, and can be designed to be intrinsically safe.LED-based systems have been used in a variety of chemical detection applications including heavy metals, pH, CO2, and O2. The approach for this work was to develop a sensor that could be mounted on a pipeline sight glass, precluding the need for direct contact of the sensor with the fuel. Below is described the design and testing of three different LED/photodiode sensors utilizing reflectance spectrometry for the measurement of dye concentration.