The outcome of the project is the design of a new, low cost, automatic water borne pollution detector of a general-purpose nature. whilst it is primarily aimed at oil-on-water detection, it will be applicable to a wide range of water pollution problems. The system is affordable and contributes significantly to industrial, environmental management. It will also make a substantial contribution to disaster avoidance in situations such as ship ballast tanks.
The primary technical result of the project is to the application of image-processing technology to the detection, recognition and quantification of separated pollution-on-water (or just below surface).
Significant substances that can be detected include diesel, jet fuel, creosol, crude oil, aromatic solvents, lubricating oil and fuel oil.