Adulteration Detection of Petroleum Products at Point of Sale POS Terminals

Abstract

In the Oil and Gas Industry, price disparity between Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), Automotive Gas Oil (AGO), and Dual Purpose Kerosene (DPK), often leads to adulteration of these petroleum products by marketers for monetary gains. Adulteration is the illegal introduction of a foreign undesirable substance to a substrate which affects the quality of the substrate. Adulteration of petroleum products are difficult to detect at Point of Sale (POS) terminals. Current methods for adulteration detection are time-consuming, require specialized equipment and experienced technicians to operate them, and cannot be used at POS terminals. Gaseous Vapor Technique (GVE) is an innovative adulteration detection technique that can be employed at POS terminals and the PePVEAT device utilized in this study is the first portable electronic device that performs GVE on petroleum products. GVE testing was performed on pure 1 L samples of PMS, AGO, and DPK obtained from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) using PePVEAT. The results obtained from GVE analysis of AGO, PMS, and DPK showed that the three petroleum products exhibited unique and varying chemical characteristics during GVE. AGO gives off its peak emissions between 10-20 seconds from test onset, DPK gives off its peak emissions between 10-30 seconds from test onset, and PMS gives off its peak emissions between 50-70 seconds from test onset. AGO emits 17.52-46.58 ppm of methane, 5.35-11.93 ppm of LPG, 35.51-84.6 ppm of butane, and 10.38-69.86 ppm of toluene. PMS emits 92,063.67-152,168.18 ppm of methane, 301.035-573.61 ppm of LPG, 2210.89-3424.94 ppm of butane, and 1983.02-7187.29 ppm of toluene. DPK emits 27.13-62.14 ppm of methane, 20.2-74.1 ppm of LPG, 120.41-1635.85 ppm of butane, and 1159.75- 1633.09 ppm of toluene. These variations in timing and concentrations of emissions shows that GVE can be utilized to detect and distinguish between AGO, PMS and DPK. The results obtained from GVE analysis of AGO, PMS, and DPK showed that Since PMS, AGO and DPK, each have unique chemical emissions during GVE, as was demonstrated in this paper, it is possible that GVE can be utilized to detect the adulterations of PMS with AGO and the adulteration of AGO with DPK. Future work involves investigating the ability of GVE to detect AGO-adulterated PMS, DPK-adulterated AGO, DPK-adulterated PMS, AGO-adulterated DPK,and PMS-adulterated DPK. The degree and percentage of adulteration that can be detected using the GVE technique will also be examined.