iGBu has worked to address concerns over illicit fuel adulteration. Fuel adulteration is illegal; however, it has proven to be a widespread problem all over the world. It is the act of mixing a lower quality fuel (like kerosene) with a higher quality fuel (such as diesel or gasoline) and then selling it as if it were pure. Fuel adulteration induces deterioration of fuel quality and engine performance. In addition, it increases emissions of VOC and sulfur oxides as well, resulting in increased air quality degradation. Fuel adulteration eventually makes innocent customers pay more for illegally blended cheaper fuels, and governments and oil firms undergo substantial revenue losses and reputation damage.
As such, a suitable method to detect and prevent fuel adulteration is needed. Fuel quality can be inspected by taking a sample to a laboratory for a detailed analysis. However, this process is slow and inefficient for a large sample size. It is therefore necessary to check fuel quality on site in order to expedite the screening process. A large effort has been dedicated to develop an appropriate portable tool for the detection of fuel adulteration. Techniques have been developed for introducing chemical markers into the fuel and determining their concentrations via portable instruments. This method has proven to be effective and widely used. It does have a couple of drawbacks however; the chemical marker used is expensive and can be removed via the adsorption of the marker in a technique labeled fuel laundering.
To solve this growing issue, several versions of the algorithms that can detect illicit fuel without the need of chemical markers are under development; EUREKA, EUREKA2 and HEUREKA.
iGBu has a number of different prepared solutions to bilinear problems in analytical chemistry. We can assist with your unknown mixture problems to identify and quantify the unknown compounds within an unknown mixture. If you need assistance, please email us at info@iGBu.co.