Imprinted sol-gel materials for monitoring degradation products in automotive oils by shear transverse wave.

Titania sol-gel layers imprinted with capric acid have been used as synthetic receptors for highly sensitive detection of oxidized products resulting from degradation of automotive engine oil. These layers have been applied as sensitive coating material on shear transverse wave (STW) resonators of frequencies ranging from 100 MHz to 430 MHz. A relatively small size of STW resonators, i.e. about 2 mm for 430 MHz makes these devices extremely useful while considering the concept of miniaturization. It has been proved experimentally that by increasing fundamental resonance frequency of these devices, a very high sensor response i.e. 22 kHz up to 460 kHz can be generated. The geometry of long chain capric acid fits best as recognition element in the synthesis of imprinted TiO(2) network. The thin titania layers coated on transducer surface provide excellent diffusion pathways to oxidized products of waste engine oil for selective and reversible re-inclusion i.e. recovery time of 30 min. Viscosity effects of oxidized engine oil can be minimized by shear waves which do not dissipate considerable amount of energy that ensure smooth liquid phase operation. Different oxidized products i.e. carbonic acids and esters can be characterized in lubricant via infra-red (IR) spectroscopy. The increasing IR absorbance of different waste oil samples is a clear indication of increasing concentration of carbonyl group. The IR absorbance of carbonyl groups is directly correlated to the age of respective waste engine oil samples and a quantitative relationship between sensor responses from STWs and IR absorbance was also developed. Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.