Temperature influences on the performance of biodiesel phononic crystal sensor

Abstract

In the present work, a 1D phononic crystal model is introduced as a biodiesel sensor. The proposed sensor can sense and distinguish between different biodiesel fuels with high performance. The sensor structured from a defect layer filled with biodiesel in the middle of a 1D binary structure as the configuration [(Al/epoxy)biodiesel[(Al/epoxy)]. Using the transfer matrix method, the reflection spectrum of the biodiesel sensor is calculated. The influences of different biodiesel fuels on the resonant peaks are compared and discussed. Also, different temperatures in the range from 20 °C to 50 °C were considered to show the sensor performance under temperature effects. Based on our results, the presented sensor can be considered as a selective sensor between different biodiesel fuels (e.g. Methyl Soy Ester, Oxidized Soy Ester, Ethyl Soy Ester, Certified D-2 and Methyl Laurate) and more sensitive to their temperature changes. For example, at temperature 30 °C the sensitivity and quality factor of the sensor reached the values of about 265 Hz °C-1 and 55.12 for Methyl Soy Ester, 261.5 Hz °C-1 and 55.8 for Oxidized Soy Ester, 260.9 Hz °C-1 and 56.2 for Ethyl Soy Ester, 291.7 Hz °C-1 and 58.3 for Certified D-2, 361.6 Hz °C-1 and 56.3 for Methyl Laurate, respectively.