Rapid and automated measurement of biofuel blending using a microfluidic viscometer

A simple capillary viscometer based on the ideal gas law

“…To do this, the ideal gas law principle was used to calculate the theoretical displacements based on known viscosities. The theoretical displacements were calculated by rearranging eqn (8) to:…”

“…By measuring the air-uid interface displacement Dl cum under a set ow rate Q, the viscosity of the sample uid can be simply calculated using eqn (8). The relative error in the viscosity determined by eqn (8) arises from the measurement uncertainties of the variables involved in this equation.…”

“…Other microfluidic viscometers in literature provide cheaper solutions and generally use some form of comparator to measure viscosity of an unknown fluid with a reference fluid of known properties by observing their interactions within the comparator. The difference in devices comes from the complexity of the comparators, which can be a single microchannel comparator, 8 a comparator with a flexible membrane in a microchannel, 9 a comparator composed of 100 microchannels, 10 or the comparison of flow distance between sample and reference liquid in microchannels activated by a degassed poly(dimethylsiloxane) space. A more sophisticated device used at oil sites is a vibrating wire viscometer built for high pressure and high temperature conditions that would be experienced deep in earth.…”

“…A more sophisticated device used at oil sites is a vibrating wire viscometer built for high pressure and high temperature conditions that would be experienced deep in earth. 11 Thorough reviews of microfluidic viscometers are provided in recent literatures, 12 which summarizes different types of microfluidic viscometer based on the sensing and measurement of pressure drop, 7,13,14 flow rate, 15 surface tension including but not limited to droplets, 16,17 co-flowing steam, 8 diffusion, 18 particle image velocimetry (PIV) 19 and viscosity indexer. 20 Overall, microfluidic viscometers at different level of complexities can measure fluids at different flow rates with a small to medium sample volume.…”

Capillary Sensor with Disposable Optrode for Diesel Fuel Quality Testing

“…Measurements of a bio-component presence in diesel fuel may be performed with the use of viscometer [27]. Furthermore, the density measured at a range of temperatures can be used to provide a concentration percentage of binary solutions [28].…”