The production of vehicles running high-ethanol-content gasoline blends, known as flex fuels, has increased. Such fuels have garnered attention due to their reduction in greenhouse gas emissions as well as their reduced volatility/vapor loss during transport and storage when compared to traditional high-petroleum gasoline blends. Before their use, flex fuels need to be analyzed to determine the amount of ethanol and methanol they contain, to support the assessment of product quality for determination of their final use. ASTM Method D55016, last updated in 2020, provides guidelines for analysis of flex fuels. The wide range of target analyte concentrations necessitates a robust calibration procedure.
This application note shows the performance of the PerkinElmer GC 2400™ System for the analysis of E85 according to ASTM Method D5501.