A Neural Network-Based Model for Predicting Saybolt Color of Petroleum Products

Saybolt color is a standard measurement scale used to determine the quality of petroleum products and the appropriate refinement process. However, the current color measurement methods are mostly laboratory-based, thereby consuming much time and being costly. Hence, we designed an automated model based on an artificial neural network to predict Saybolt color. The network has been built with five input variables, density, kinematic viscosity, sulfur content, cetane index, and total acid number; and one output, i.e., Saybolt color. Two backpropagation algorithms with different transfer functions and neurons number were tested. Mean absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE), and coefficient of determination (R(2)) were used to assess the performance of the developed model. Additionally, the results of the ANN model are compared with the multiple linear regression (MLR). The results demonstrate that the ANN with the Levenberg–Marquart algorithm, tangent sigmoid transfer function, and three neurons achieved the highest performance (R(2) = 0.995, MAE = 1.000, and RMSE = 1.658) in predicting the Saybolt color. The ANN model appeared to be superior to MLR (R(2) = 0.830). Hence, this shows the potential of the ANN model as an effective method with which to predict Saybolt color in real time.