Unsupervised Clustering-Assisted Method for Consensual Quantitative Analysis of Methanol–Gasoline Blends by Raman Spectroscopy

Abstract

Methanol–gasoline blends have emerged as a promising and environmentally friendly bio-fuel option, garnering widespread attention and promotion globally. The methanol content within these blends significantly influences their quality and combustion performance. This study explores the qualitative and qualitative analysis of methanol–gasoline blends using Raman spectroscopy coupled with machine learning methods. Experimentally, methanol–gasoline blends with varying methanol concentrations were artificially configured, commencing with initial market samples. For qualitative analysis, the partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) model was employed to classify the categories of blends, demonstrating high prediction performance with an accuracy of nearly 100% classification. For the quantitative analysis, a consensus model was proposed to accurately predict the methanol content. It integrates member models developed on clustered variables, using the unsupervised clustering method of the self-organizing mapping neural network (SOM) to accomplish the regression prediction. The performance of this consensus model was systemically compared to that of the PLS model and uninformative variable elimination (UVE)–PLS model. Results revealed that the unsupervised consensus model outperformed other models in predicting the methanol content across various types of methanol gasoline blends. The correlation coefficients for prediction sets consistently exceeded 0.98. Consequently, Raman spectroscopy emerges as a suitable choice for both qualitative and quantitative analysis of methanol–gasoline blend quality. This study anticipates an increasing role for Raman spectroscopy in analysis of fuel composition.