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In response to the demand to lower CO2 emission, all engine developers face the challenge of drastically reducing fuel consumption. At the same time, they will need to meet future exhaust emission legislation by simultaneously employing internal measures and after treatment systems. Additionally, they will have to deal with increasing fuel variability. As different properties can lead to very different behavior in engine operation, information onboard the vehicle providing the fuel composition would allow to adjust engine operating parameters accordingly, to make the most beneficial use of the available fuel quality. This will be obvious considering future diesel fuels blends, or the ever increasing amount of biodiesel content mixed into Diesel fuel, but could already be interesting considering existing fuel variability faced in Europe or America.

Tighter CO2 emissions regulations combined with gasoline price increase and oil independency political strategies push to facilitate bio fuels introduction and corresponding flexfuel engines. Bio fuels can be produced from agricultural feedstocks such as corn, wheat, barley, sugar cane, soybean, sunflower and rapeseed for instance. It can also be made from renewable cellulosic materials like jathropa, forestry waste, wood waste, and agricultural residues. Increasing the amount of biofuel in the gasoline or diesel allows to reduce Carbon/Hydrogen rate by substituting Carbon atoms by Oxygen atoms to a maximum limit. Associated with dedicated flexfuel engines and technologies, there is a strong potential to reduce the net carbon dioxide emissions on a vehicle mile basis. A disruptive technology developed since 2004 using a rough optical device is available today.