Microstructure for Thermal Impedance Spectroscopy for Biofuel Composition Measurement

Thermal impedance spectroscopy has been investigated as a non-destructive technique to determine the composition of ternary mixtures of biofuels. The principle of the thermal conductivity detector has been extended for measuring both the thermal conductivity and the thermal capacity of biofuel in the range between 1 to 100 Hz, using an AC-operated polysilicon heater for injecting a sinusoidal heat flux, and another polysilicon strip at a well-defined spacing or thermopile sensors for measuring the in-phase and quadrature components of the resulting AC temperature difference.