O

posed for low-water-content measurement, which has a

E High-accuracy low-water- measurement accuracy of ⫾0.05% in the range of 0%–3%
by volume.4
content measurement In this paper, a novel experimental setup based on near-
of crude oil based on a infrared 共NIR兲 spectral technology and fiber optic sensors is
presented. It has a measurement accuracy of 0.01%, which
near-infrared spectral is better, to our knowledge, than any other method pub-
lished until now. Advantages of this method also include
L absorption method high measurement resolution 共0.005% in the measurement
range from zero to 5%兲, keeping the measured liquid
pollution-free, and fast measurement.
E Yong Zhao 2 Principle and Experimental Setup
Jian Yang
In a liquid containing water and oil, the chemical bonds
T Jin-Qi Wang
Fang-Xiao Gui within water molecules and crude oil components have
Tsinghua University characteristic absorption NIR spectra, as shown in Fig. 1.
Department of Automation Accordingly, some specific wavelength in the NIR absorp-
T Beijing 100084, China tion spectrum can be selected as a measurement signal. The
E-mail: zhaoyong@tsinghua.org.cn light power received after being attenuated by the measured
liquid and filtered by a narrowband optical filter has an
E Abstract. Based on near-infrared spectral absorption and
fiber-optic sensor technology, an experimental setup for low-
intrinsic relation to the water content. Based on light ab-
sorption theory, when a monochromatic light beam passes
water-content measurement of crude oil is developed. The
through a homogeneous medium, the absorbed light power
R advantages of this method include fast measurement, high
accuracy, keeping the measured oil free of pollution, and is related to the number of molecules in the measurement
being suitable for long-term on-line continuous monitoring. light path,5 that is, to the concentration of this component
This technology can be used for those applications that re- in the medium. The received light intensity transmitted by
S quire high-quality water-in-oil measurement and process the medium can be described as
control. The measurement resolution for water content is
better than 0.005% in the range from zero to 2% by volume.
Measurement errors are estimated to be ⫾0.01% in the I 共 ␭ 兲 ⫽I 0 共 ␭ 兲 exp关 ⫺A 共 ␭ 兲 CL 兴 , 共1兲
range from zero to 1%. © 2004 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumen-
tation Engineers. [DOI: 10.1117/1.1783291] where A(␭) is independent of the measured concentration,
C is the concentration of the measured component, and L is
Subject terms: low water content; near-infrared spectrum; fiber op-
tic sensor; crude oil; on-line measurement. the length of the measured medium.
The experimental setup is shown in Fig. 2. White light is
Paper OEL04036 received Apr. 7, 2004; revised manuscript collimated by an optical lens and passes through the mea-
received May 20, 2004; accepted for publication May 27, 2004;
appeared online May 27, 2004.
sured medium. After being attenuated by the medium, the
light is focused into the transmission fiber bundle, and then
split into two branches, respectively filtered by narrowband
optical filters. One branch is filtered by a 1440-nm optical
filter, which wavelength is one of the sensitive absorption
1 Introduction wavelengths of the water NIR absorption spectrum. The
Water content measurement technologies are very impor- filtered light intensity is a function of the water concentra-
tant for evaluating crude oil dehydration, transmission, and tion in the measured me-
exportation. In recent years, requirements for accurate low-
water-content measurement in oil have been more and more
exigent, and great interest has been shown in theoretical
and experimental work. Schuller and his colleagues intro-
duced a sensor system based on a single-electrode capaci-
tance probe, which can measure water content from zero to
100%, but further research work and detailed information
about its performance have not appeared.1 Luggar devel-
oped a method to measure the oil/water ratio based on x-ray
scattering technology. The relative measurement error is
about 0.6% in the range from zero to 80%.2 In addition,
methods presently used for low-water-content measurement
based on microwave and ultrashort waves have achieved a
measurement accuracy of 0.1%.3 However, with the devel-
opment and advancement of crude oil dehydration technol-
ogy, a typical water content range for export and transmis-
sion oil is now from 0.1% to 0.25%, so the 0.1% accuracy
has become insufficient. In 2002, a measurement setup Fig. 1 Near-infrared absorption spectrum of water and different
based on a coaxial cylindrical capacitance sensor was pro- crude oils.

2216 Opt. Eng. 43(10) 2216–2217 (October 2004) 0091-3286/2004/$15.00 © 2004 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers
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 Zhao et al.: High-accuracy low-water-content measurement . . .
Fig. 2 Experimental setup for water-content measurement based
on the NIR system.
dium and is monitored by a photodetector. The other branch
is filtered by a 1200-nm optical filter, which wavelength is
not sensitive to water concentration variation and acts, as a
reference signal to remove the effect of light source varia-
tion.
The NIR spectrum is very sensitive to ambient tempera-
ture, so in order to improve the measurement accuracy, the
ambient temperature, especially the temperature around the
sample cell, should be stably controlled. The dimension of
the sample cell is selected according to optical spectros-
copy theory: If a monochromatic light beam passes through
a homogeneous medium, then when the absorbance reaches
0.434, the measurement error is the least.
3 Preliminary Experimental Results
In the experimental setup described, a bromine-tungsten
lamp with output power 50 mW is selected as the light
source. A glass chemical-analytical container with a 12-mm
length along the optical path acts as the sample cell. The
fiber bundle is composed of several tens of multimode op-
tical communication fibers. Figure 3 shows the calibration
curve for the water content, from which we can see that the
measured characteristic curve agrees well with the absorp-
tion theory of Eq. 共1兲. In the measurement range from zero
to 2%, the measured signals are very sensitive to the varied
water content, and the measurement resolution can reach
0.005%. So the conclusion can be reached that this experi-
mental system is very suitable for the measurement of low
water content. Figure 4 indicates the measurement accu-
racy; the horizontal axis represents the true 共weighed兲 water
Fig. 3 Calibration curve for the water content measurement.
Downloaded From: http://opticalengineering.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 05/19/2015 Terms of Use: http://spiedl.org/terms
O
E
L
E
Fig. 4 Measurement data on water content compared with true val-
ues. T
content, and the vertical axis represents the water content
measured by our technique. From Fig. 4, we can see that in
the measured water content range of 0–1%, the measure-
T
ment error is less than ⫾0.01%.
4 Conclusions E
Based on NIR spectrum absorption theory and fiber-optic
sensor technology, an experimental setup has been devel-
oped for the accurate measurement of low water content in R
crude oil. This method has several advantages:
• The direct measurement is suitable for on-line moni- S
toring of a production process.
• In contrast with infrared or midinfrared measurement
technology, the light path in the sample cell can be
suitably large 共1–100 mm兲.
• The sample cell can be made of glass, which the NIR
light can pentrate, and this enables the combination of
NIR technology and a fiber-optic sensor.
• The measurement accuracy is high: Measurement
resolution of 0.005% and measurement error of
⫾0.01% are obtained in this paper.
• There is no need of other reagents, no destruction of
the measured sample, and no pollution of the environ-
ment.
• Not many optical elements are needed, which facili-
tates miniaturization of the measurement system.
• The measurement is fast and immune to electromag-
netic interference.
References
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water concentration in oil/water dispersion by a single-electrode ca-
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Technology Conf., pp. 635– 639 共2003兲.
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Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A 422, 938 –941 共1999兲.
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Optical Engineering, Vol. 43 No. 10, October 2004 2217