Composition for the colorimetric detection of water in hydrocarbon fuels and a process for the preparation thereof

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9638680-B2
Application number	US-201514594873-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 12, 2015
Priority date	Jan 13, 2014
Publication date	May 2, 2017
Grant date	May 2, 2017

Abstract

The embodiments of the present invention disclose a composition for the colorimetric detection of water in hydrocarbon fuels and a process for the preparation thereof. The embodiments of the present invention relate to an improved method for determining the presence or absence of water in non-polar organic fluids such as petroleum oil or hydrocarbon oils by using an indicator system containing a water insoluble wetting agent and a water soluble dye which can be performed rapidly without costly instrumentation and tedious, time consuming analytical methods.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A composition for the colorimetric detection of water in hydrocarbon fuels consisting of:
a color indicating dye,
finely divided clay in the range of 1:50 to 5:1000 wt. % ratio, and
optionally, a metal oxide in the range of 4 to 50 wt. %.

2. The composition of claim 1 , wherein dye is selected from the group consisting of cresol red, sodium salt of o-cresol red, phenol red, and methylene blue.

3. The composition of claim 1 , wherein clay is selected from the group consisting of montmorillonite, montmorillonite KSF, bentonite, and keoline.

4. The composition of claim 1 , wherein metal oxide is selected from the group consisting of BaO, ZnO, CaO, CdO, and MgO.

5. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the weight ratio of the finely divided clay to the metal oxide, when present in the composition, to the color indicating dye is within the range between about 1000:50:5 to 100:20:1.

6. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the composition was prepared by adding the color indicating dye and finely divided clay, and optionally, the metal oxide.

7. An improved method for the colorimetric detection of water in hydrocarbon fuels using the composition of claim 1 , wherein the method comprises:
shaking the composition in the test hydrocarbon fuel for a period of 10-15 seconds, and
agitating the composition for 1-2 minutes,
whereby the development of an intense dark pink color indicates the presence of free suspended water contained in the test fuel in an amount of at least 15 ppm.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the weight ratio of the finely divided clay, to the metal oxide, when present in the composition, to the color indicating dye in the composition is in the range between 1000:50:5 to 100:20:1.

9. The method of claim 7 , further comprising adding 0.1 to 0.5 g of the composition of claim 1 to 100 ml of a hydrocarbon fuel sample.

10. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the composition is free from a liquid carrier.

11. The method of claim 7 , wherein the composition is free from a liquid carrier.

Assignees

• Council Scient Ind Res

Inventors

• Kumar Khatri Praveen
• Lata Jain Suman
• Kumar Ghosh Indrajit
• Kumar Umesh
• Kumar Chatterjee Alok
• Onkarnath Garg Madhukar

Classifications

• G01N33/22 Primary

  Fuels; Explosives · CPC title

• G01N33/2847 Primary

  Water in oils · CPC title