Volumetric method for free and total glycerin determination in biodiesel

M.L. PISARELLO; B.O. DALLA COSTA; N.S. VEIZAGA; C.A. QUERINI

INDUSTRIAL & ENGINEERING CHEMICAL RESEARCH

AMER CHEMICAL SOC

Año: 2010 vol. 49 p. 8935 - 8941

0888-5885

The biodiesel has gain increasing attention due to the increasing concern regarding environmental problems associated with the use of fossil fuels. Quality control of this renewable fuel involves many analysis, requiring several of them the use of analytical instruments. According to the ASTM and EN standards the analysis of free and total glycerin, which are of particular relevance regarding the biodiesel quality, must be carried out by GC analysis. In this paper we present an alternative volumetric method, wich does not need any instrument, and therefore is particularly useful for quality control in small facilities. As another advantage, it also overcomes the shortcoming of the GC procedure, such as the detection limits and the type of raw material used to produce the biodiesel. While the GC analysis is restricted to biodiesel obtained from soybean, rapeseed or sunflower oil, the volumetric methods has no limitations in this sense.