The detection and quantification of water droplets dispersed in hydrocarbon liquids is of importance industrially, but most notably for quality assurance of products such as diesel and jet fuel. In the present work, a small-scale prototype capacitance-based zone sensing device for the detection of individual water droplets in immiscible liquids is tested. Hydrocarbon liquids containing dispersed water droplets flow through cylindrical holes (diameter = 680 μm) drilled through a printed circuit board (PCB) containing sensing electronics. The exposed copper laminate layer constitutes the sensing electrodes. Dispersions of water in aviation jet fuel, a forecourt diesel fuel and a conventional crude oil have been used in the evaluation. It was found that water droplets of a detectable size to enable measurements to be made with the device (in the approximate range 100–400 μm) were not sufficiently stable in jet fuels, whereas diesel and crude oil were able to suspend water droplets within a size range suitable to permit a simple analysis based on the volume of the spherical segments of the droplet passing through the sensing zone. The results obtained are consistent with expectation based on water concentration and mixing conditions.

分散在碳氢化合物液体中的水滴的检测和量化在工业上很重要，但最显着的是对柴油和喷气燃料等产品的质量保证。在目前的工作中，测试了一种基于电容的小型原型区域传感装置，用于检测不混溶液体中的单个水滴。含有分散水滴的碳氢化合物液体流过圆柱形孔（直径 = 680 μm），这些孔穿过包含传感电子设备的印刷电路板 (PCB)。暴露的铜叠层构成感应电极。在评估中使用了航空喷气燃料、前场柴油燃料和常规原油中的水分散体。发现可检测尺寸的水滴（在大约 100-400 μm 的范围内）在喷气燃料中不够稳定，而柴油和原油能够将水滴悬浮在适合允许基于通过感应区的液滴的球形部分的体积进行简单分析的尺寸范围。所得结果与基于水浓度和混合条件的预期一致。