With the growing concern about environmental sustainability, interest in biofuels and new energy continues to grow. One such renewable fuel is biodiesel, which can be made from any form of fat, whether from animals or plants. Converting fat (or feedstock) into biodiesel involves two major steps: pretreatment and conversion. The purpose of pretreatment is to reduce the levels of contaminants to levels which avoid poisoning the catalysts used to convert the feedstock in biodiesel and other products. Inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) is the technique of choice for these analyses due to its robustness, ability to handle viscous organic matrices, and ability to measure sub-ppm concentrations of many elements with ease.
This work demonstrates the ability of the Avio® 550 Max fully simultaneous ICP-OES to analyze biodiesel feedstock samples accurately and reproducibly. Among the many advantages of the system, its robustness allows these feedstock samples to be diluted only 4x, resulting in the ability to measure lower concentrations, without increasing maintenance.
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