The production of renewable fuels, such as biodiesel, continues to be a growing global industry. Renewable diesel can be made from any plant or vegetable material that contains oils, as well as from animal fat (or feedstock). Since feedstock can originate from a variety of sources, the levels of contaminants cannot be predicted – they must be measured accurately as they arrive at a refinery so that pretreatment can be optimized. 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 addresses the application of renewable feedstock analysis for a subset of elements from the ASTM D5185 list and arsenic using the Avio® 220 Max hybrid simultaneous ICP-OES system. It demonstrates that the system is well suited for this type of analysis at renewable diesel refineries that are running low to moderate sample loads over the course of a production shift. The Avio 220 Max was clearly able to determine the most critical elements for this refinery’s Pretreatment Unit (PTU) at the levels needed for process control.