The theory of non-commutative rings allows determining whether or not there exists an equation called algebraically essential in order to estimate the delay on a nonlinear system. In this paper, it firstly recalls some literature results on algebraically essential equation. Then it is shown that this equation is generally not enough to guarantee the delay estimation, thus the notion of persistent signal with respect to delay estimation is introduced. Furthermore, based on the definitions of algebraically essential equation and of persistent signal, a delay estimation algorithm is proposed. Some simulation results have been presented in order to highlight the robustness (with respect to measurement noise) of the proposed algorithm.