Technical Paper
Innovative on Board Optical Sensor Dedicated to Measure Water, Alcohols and Ethers Content in Biofuels for Flexfuel Engine Optimization
2008-10-06
2008-01-2451
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.