Development of an Automobile Adulteration Indicator System

Automobile users in the city are battling a serious problem these days with adulteration of Fuel. With an increased number of petrol pumps dispensing ‘unfit’ fuel, ‘dirty fuel’, consumers complain that vehicles are now faced with a range of glitches including poor ignition, reduced mileage and even jammed engines. Apart from causing inconvenience, this has also added to the maintenance cost of automobiles, say users, with the price of spare parts, especially engines skyrocketing by the day. Adulterated petroleum products in automobiles contributes to auto malfunctions, urban air pollution, health hazards and has continued to increase in Nigeria due to scarcity of products. Laboratory analyses normally conducted by regulatory agencies and some end - users for routine assurance of the petroleum products are not competent enough to address the issue. To effectively technically detect petroleum products adulteration in an automobile at real-time with the use of an indicator system on the dash board of the automobile, the technology of an electronic device, adulterate meter is being incorporated. The said indication system having an input are supplied by the ignition system. The design is such that as soon as the fuel sample torches the base of the fuel tank, or a change in chemical composition of fuel purity, an electrical signal, mostly a load cell sensor or a voltage signal is connected to the sensor situated at the base of the fuel tank. The output signals from the detector circuit are conditioned to produce outputs which can be measured with color display and alarm.