Electrical conductivity based oil detection and

skimming
2Tejashwini
1Prajwal SU 3Akhilesh
Kumar. D S Patil
Student,
Student, Student,
Dept. of EEE
Dept. of EEE Dept. of EEE
BMS Institute of Technology and
BMS Institute of Technology and BMS Institute of Technology and
Management
Management Management
Bengaluru, India
Bengaluru, India Bengaluru, India
[email protected]
[email protected] [email protected]
4Chidanand 5Dr.
V Manjunatha Babu P
Student, Assistant Professor,
Dept. of EEE Dept. of EEE
BMS Institute of Technology and BMS Institute of Technology and
Management Management
Bengaluru, India Bengaluru, India
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—The aim of this project is to remove the oil the open terminal in the circuit we can determine the
effluents floating on water and store the oil in a separate tank. presence of oil. The integration of electric conductivity in oil
This is done by an oil skimmer controlled by an Arduino and a spill clean-up will emerge as a game-changing solution,
voltage sensor. Two metal openings will touch the surface of offering a more efficient and a way for making the oil
water and if water is present in between, the voltage at the skimmers automated.
opening is nearly zero (short circuit) or else, if oil is present in
between, the voltage at the openings is almost equal to battery
voltage (open circuit). Hence, we will be using the electrical II. MOTIVATION
conductivity of water to detect the presence of oil on water. The motivation behind the development of this project
The voltage current sensor is used to measure the voltage. stems from a deep concern for the environmental
Therefore, by measuring the voltage at the opening, we can consequences of oil spills and a commitment to finding
detect the presence of oil and signal the user about it. A innovative, sustainable solutions. Oil spills have devastating
polyurethane belt is used to separate oil from water. Using a effects on aquatic ecosystems, causing long-term damage to
belt drive, the PU belt will be dipped into water and when the
marine life. The motivation to mitigate these impacts drives
belt moves upwards only the oil effluents comes with the belt.
the need for effective and environmentally conscious clean-
Using scrapers, the oil from the belt is taken out and stored in
a separate tank. The whole system is monitored and controlled
up methods. The idea to do this project on oil skimming was
by an Arduino UNO and is powered by a dc battery. Hence, got from an article on newspaper which we came across
with this system, we are mainly aiming to show how the (Times of India, dated: 18th dec 23). The article was about a
inclusion of electric conductivity to detect oil on water will help oil spill which occurred in an CPCL (Chennai Petroleum
in making the oil skimmers fully automatic in near future. Corporation Limited) triggering an environmental
catastrophe. Around 110 boats along with a workforce of 615
Keywords—oil skimmer, Arduino UNO, ACS712 current individuals were working to clear the oil spill. The article
sensor, polyurethane belt, scraper, electric conductivity. said that they were using mugs to remove the oil which is
labour intensive.
I. INTRODUCTION
Oil spills pose a significant threat to aquatic ecosystems,
causing widespread environmental damage and endangering
marine life. Skimming is a process where floatable liquids
like oil and grease are removed from the water. Oil skimmers
are very important to collect the oil during oil leakages
caused by accidents of ships, accidents at oil mining, factory
outlet etc. The oil skimmers use a special type of material to
separate oil from water called polyurethane (PU). This
material only absorbs the oil effluent on its surface. The oil Fig. 1. Newspaper article on oil spill
from the surface of polyurethane is then separated using
scrapers. Therefore, the oil is stored separately and is used, III. LITERATURE REVIEW
hence preventing its wastage.
R. Manivel et al. [1] studied about the coated materials
Now, electric conductivity is used to detect the presence like Teflon or activated carbon which is very sticky to oil
of oil on the surface of water. As we know water is a good more than that of water. They also gave an equation for
conductor of electricity and oil is a bad conductor of volume flow rate:
electricity. Consider a closed circuit open in between, if there
is water present between the opening, it results in short V = t * D * pi * d * N (1)
circuit and if there is oil present between the opening, it t = thickness of film (mm)
results in open circuit. Hence, by monitoring the voltage at
 D = width of roller (cm) • Viscosity of oil before and after separation will not
be same, with 10% to 15% decrease in the viscosity.
d= diameter of roller drum (mm)
N = speed of rotation of shaft (rpm) • The oil skimming methods are still manually
controlled and cannot detect the presence of oil.
In this paper, for the system designed for 60 rpm had
85% oil recovery rate and was able to extract 226.08 • In case of emulsified or dispersed oil that forms thin
mL/min. layers is still a difficult task to extract oil from
traditional oil skimming methods.
Subhrajit Bhattacharya et al. [2] worked on two
autonomous surface vehicles cooperatively towing a flexible • Adapting skimming operations to diverse
skimmer. They showed the relationship between coverage environments remains a major problem.
rate, the maximum force that each vehicle can apply, the So, from above mentioned problems we will be working
separation between the vehicles and their speed. They also towards making oil skimming less labour intensive. To solve
derived the condition under which the coverage rate is this, one of the methods is to make the oil skimming
maximized - an important capability for efficient skimming automated. Hence, with the introduction of electrical
operations. conductivity we can detect the presence of oil which is the
Harold Bernard et al. [3] presented at the Offshore goal of our project. So, we are only working on
Technology Conference, Houston, Texas, April 1972. A implementing electric conductivity property and with further
review of the containment and cleanup methods employed improvements in this can lead to a fully automated oil
during the Chevron and Shell incidents in the Gulf of Mexico skimmers which reduces labour and human errors.
was presented. There were over 10,000 discharges of oil to
the fresh or marine water environment annually from V. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
accidents consisting of millions of gallons, from large tanker
accidents. They discussed on various types of instruments A. Microcontroller
that were used in early days for extracting oil and their A microcontroller is a compact integrated circuit
upgrades over the years. designed to govern a specific operation in an embedded
Mamata Patel [4] studied various belt type oil skimmers system. A typical microcontroller includes a processor,
and gave a detailed design calculations for the length of the memory and input/output (I/O) peripherals on a single chip.
belt. The author also mentioned an equation to determine the Sometimes referred to as an embedded controller or
viscosity of oil: microcontroller unit (MCU). A microcontroller is embedded
inside of a system to control a singular function in a device.
Ƞ = P π r4 t / 8 L V (2) It does this by interpreting data it receives from its I/O
V = Liquid volume flowing through capillary in time ‘t’ peripherals using its central processor. The temporary
information that the microcontroller receives is stored in its
P = Pressure head data memory, where the processor accesses it and uses
r = radius of the tube instructions stored in its program memory to decipher and
apply the incoming data. It then uses its I/O peripherals to
L = Length of pipe communicate and enact the appropriate action.
t = time taken by liquid to flow. Task of microcontroller in the system:
Dalavi S.G. et al. [5] designed an oil skimmer and the In the designed system microcontroller is used to keep
result they got were: track on the voltage reading. When the voltage read equals
the battery voltage, it signals the belt drive motor to run.
TABLE I. VISCOSITY OF DIFFERENT OIL TYPES BEFORE AND AFTER
Hence, this indicates the presence of oil and the oil skimming
SEPARATION operation will take place. When the voltage read is
approximately equal to zero, the belt drive motor will not
SI Type of oil Oil Oil Efficiency
No. viscosity viscosity
run. Hence, indicating the absence of oil. Other tasks for
(Before (After microcontroller will be to indicate the user about the
separation) separation) presence of oil using any of the indicators such as LEDs.
1 Garage oil 50.0 47.6 95% Microcontroller used in the system:
2 SAE40 161.1 140.3 87% The Arduino UNO R3 microcontroller will be used for
3 Mixed oil 114.3 110.1 96% our prototype. It is an open-source microcontroller board
based on Microchip ATmega328P microcontroller and
developed by Arduino.cc and initially released in 2010. It
can be powered by a USB cable or a barrel conductor that
IV. PROBLEM STATEMENT accepts voltages between 7 and 20 volts, such as rectangular
• The present oil skimming methods are labour- 9-volt battery. Hence making it a good choice for our
intensive job. prototype.

• The rate at which the oil extracted is less and should

be improved.
 to the Arduino board through an analog pin. The voltage
divider circuit is as follows:

Fig. 2. Arduino UNO R3

B. Voltage sensor
A voltage sensor is a device that measures the voltage of Fig. 5. Voltage divider circuit
an electrical circuit. Voltage sensors are used in many
applications, including monitoring and controlling equipment Pin Structure of the sensor:
and machinery. There are two types of voltage sensors: those
that measure voltage and those that measure current (or
amperage). The first type is a voltage-sensitive resistor
(VSR), while the second is an operational amplifier (op-
amp).
Task of voltage sensor in the system:
The voltage sensor in our system will help to monitor the
voltage at the open terminals of the circuit. This is an
important part of our system because the output of this
sensor will determine the presence of oil on water. Here
voltage sensor acts as a voltmeter in the circuit as shown. Fig. 6. Voltage sensor module
When water is present between the opening, it nearly shorts
the open terminal, hence the voltage at the terminal is almost C. Measuring voltage using voltage sensor and Arduino
equal to zero. When there is oil between the opening, it is as UNO
good as open circuit as oil is a bad conductor of electricity. As we came to know that voltage sensor uses
As it is open circuited the battery voltage appears at the voltage divider circuit to measure the voltage, if R1 and
opening. So, voltage sensor will send the data to the R2 are the two resistances of the voltage divider circuit,
microcontroller and when volatge read is almost equal to Vin is the input voltage, then output voltage Vout is given
battery voltage, the microcontroller will perform the by,
necessary tasks.
Vout = Vin * (R2 / R1 + R2) (3)
Here, Arduino measures the output voltage and with
that the input voltage is measured by rearranging the
above equation:
Vin = Vout * (R1 + R2 / R2) (4)
From Fig. 3, R1 = 30 Kohms and R2 = 7.5 Kohms
For the connection, connect the voltage to be
Fig. 3. Circuit with water between the opening measured to the input screw terminal of the sensor. Then,
connect the ‘S’ pin of the sensor to the analog pin of the
Arduino UNO (eg.: A0 pin) and ‘-’ pin of the sensor to
ground pin of Arduino UNO.

Fig. 4. Circuit with oil between the opening

Voltage sensor used in the system:
The sensor is made using a voltage divider circuit. Also,
this voltage divider circuit includes two resistors of 30kohm
and 7.5kohm. When a potential is applied to this circuit, we Fig. 7. Arduino UNO and voltage sensor connection for
can get the voltage difference in the voltage divider point via measuring current
the signal pin. So, the voltage can be calculated by getting it
D. Belt drive for oil skimming: leads to open circuit where voltage is maximum.
Now, Arduino will get to know the presence of oil
and hence signals belt drive and it starts to rotate.
• VSL = V and VSR = 0: This indicates the presence
of oil on the left side of the skimmer as the voltage
on the left side is equal to battery voltage. Now the
Arduino will get to know the oil presence to the left
and the left indicator will glow, which signals the
user about the oil presence to the left.
• VSL = 0 and VSR = V: This indicates the presence
Fig. 8. Belt drive for oil skimming of oil on the right side of the skimmer as the voltage
Commonly belt drives are used to carry objects from one on the right side is equal to battery voltage. Now the
place to other using motor drives. In this belt drive, the belt Arduino will get to know the oil presence to the
used will carry the oil from water. As shown in the Fig. 7, a right and the right indicator will glow, which
dc motor is placed at one end and the other two will be gears. signals the user about the oil presence to the right.
The speed of motor will be around 60 rpm. The coverage Hence, during the absence of oil the belt drive will not
area at the bottom which will be in contact with the water is rotate and starts to rotate only when oil is detected. This
important, because if the coverage area increases, the rate at skimmer will be manually controlled on the water and the
which the oil skimmed will increase. The polyurethane belt prototype that we will be designing will not move on its own
is used and this will adsorb only the oil effluents from the but the user should hold or push for the movement of the
water. Scrappers are used as shown, which will take out the skimmer.
oil from the belt due to strong friction and is collected in the
oil tank. Later the oil from the oil tank is taken out from top, As we got to know the connection between the Arduino
as, if any little water content is present, it will be at the and the voltage sensor, consider Fig. 10, which shows the
bottom. circuit connection for oil detection at each side of the
prototype. The plastic sheet is used because the metal
VI. METHODOLOGY opening should always be in contact with the surface water.
As the plastic will float on water, it will be at the surface and
An air-filled tube is used to float the system on water. opening provided should be very small as the oil film
The body will be made of hard cardboard sheet. The thickness on water is very less.
polyurethane (PU) belt is used on the belt drive. As shown in
Fig.9, the bottom will be always in contact with surface
water. As the belt drive rotates, the oil present on the surface
water will be adsorbed on the PU belt. This adsorbed belt
will move up as shown in the diagram. The oil particles on
the belt will be extracted using scrappers which will rub the
belt on the surface and the oil will be collected in an oil tank.
A DC motor is used for the drive as indicated by M. This
motor will be powered through a 12V dc battery.

Fig. 10. Electric circuit for oil detection

The top view of the prototype is shown in Fig. 11.

Fig. 9. Oil flow on the belt drive

Connection of Arduino with the voltage sensor is shown
in Fig.7. This voltage sensor will be present at both the sides
(left and right). Let, VSL = Left side voltage sensor reading
and VSR = Right side voltage sensor reading. There are
following possibilities:
• VSL = 0 and VSR = 0: This indicates the presence
of water as the voltage read is equal to zero, as
water is a good conductor of electricity, it leads to
short circuit where voltage is minimum. Hence, the
Arduino will get to know the absence of oil and the
belt drive will not rotate.
Fig. 11. Prototype diagram – top view
• VSL = V and VSR = V: This indicates the presence
of oil on water as the voltage read is equal to battery
voltage, as oil is a bad conductor of electricity, it
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