Analysis of Contaminants in Lubricant Oil by near Infrared Spectroscopy and Interval Partial Least-Squares

Abstract

The feasibility of using near infrared (NIR) transmission spectroscopy for rapid and conclusive determination of contaminants in lubricant oil was investigated. The NIR spectrum in the region from 1300 to 1700 nm was used to predict gasoline and ethylene glycol concentrations present in lubricant oil. A graphically-oriented local multivariate calibration modelling procedure called interval partial least-squares (iPLS) was applied to find variable intervals that featured the lowest prediction error. When compared with the full spectrum PLS model, better results were obtained through the iPLS program. High correlation coefficients and low root mean square errors of cross-validation ( RMSECV) were obtained for gasoline ( R = 0.98, RMSECV = 0.38%, range = 0.2–8.0% w/w) and ethylene glycol determinations ( R = 0.97, RMSECV = 0.04%, range = 0.06 to 0.7% w/w), indicating that the proposed methodology can be used for contaminant determinations in lubricant oil.