Abu Dhabi: Researchers at the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) are working on a project which aims to electronically detect the impurities in jet fuel. The new technology, which took one and a half years to develop, can detect any contamination in fuel, which can help solve a variety of problems in transportation worldwide.
“Two years ago, a French aviation company visited the university to present the challenges they faced in corrosion related to the fuel contamination. If old fuel gets a bit of moisture and water content, the fungi and bacteria grow in it. We usually think fuel is a chemical material and no bacteria can grow in it but it is not true — it becomes an infection just like in the human body, and fungus and bacteria can grow in fuel, which makes it corrosive and damaging to storage tanks as well as engine components,” said Dr Rashad Ramzan, associate professor in electrical engineering.
“Corrosion can develop in the fuel tanks, which are in the wings of a jet for instance. The replacement of tanks is very expensive because they’re not like automobiles — they’re in the wings so detecting fuel impurity can reduce the amount of corrosion in the fuel tanks of jets, thus extending the engine life,” he added.
The detection technique used by the device is based on monitoring the dielectric constant of the fuel according to Dr Ramzan.
“This is true for the bio, moisture, and water-related impurities that effect the dielectric constant of the fuel. However, if the impurity is of some special type, which do not change the dielectric constant of the fuel, that will not be detected. But luckily, all the major naturally-occurring impurities change the dielectric constant of the fuel,” he said.
Dr Ramzan said that he has filed a patent for the device in the US, which he says he hopes to receive soon.
