A New Fluorescence Imaging Method to Evaluate Different Oil Types and Their Concentrations in Water

Abstract Oil pollution in aquatic systems remains a major global issue, especially due to bilge water discharges that may exceed the 15 ppm oil‐in‐water (OiW) threshold set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). In this study, an improved fluorescence imaging method is presented for quantifying oil concentration and simultaneously characterizing droplet distributions in dynamic emulsions. OiW emulsions of four different oil types were prepared without chemical stabilizers in a range from 5 to 100 ppm. The images were processed with custom algorithms to determine fluorescence signal, droplet number, and size distribution. The calibration showed a strong linear correlation between fluorescence and oil concentration ( R 2 = 0.967–0.999).