TY - JOUR A1 - Gotor, Raúl A1 - Tiebe, Carlo A1 - Schlischka, Jörg A1 - Bell, Jérémy A1 - Rurack, Knut T1 - Detection of adulterated diesel using fluorescent test strips and smartphone readout JF - Energy & Fuels N2 - The fluorescence properties of three molecular rotors, related to 4-dimethylamino-4-nitrostilbene (4-DNS), are studied versus different diesel/kerosene blends. In nonviscous solvents, these compounds can populate a twisted intramolecular charge transfer state which deactivates nonradiatively, successfully suppressing fluorescence emission. Solution experiments with diesel/kerosene blends showed a good linear correlation between the fluorescence intensity of the probe molecules and the diesel fraction of the blend. The dyes have been immobilized on paper, retaining their fluorescence behavior, i.e., negligible emission in the presence of nonviscous organic solvents and increasing fluorescence when the environment is increasingly viscous. When the impregnated paper is devised as a test strip, the latter is compatible with a newly designed smartphone reader system, which allows in-the-field measurements. The method can safely detect the presence of kerosene in diesel at ≥7%, which competes favorably with current standard methods for the detection of diesel adulteration. KW - Fuel adulteration KW - Diesel KW - Fluorescence KW - Test strip KW - Molecular rotor KW - Smartphone PY - 2017 DO - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.7b01538 SN - 0887-0624 VL - 31 IS - 11 SP - 11594 EP - 11600 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington, D.C. AN - OPUS4-43103 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -