Comprehensive Elemental Analysis of Biofuels and their Precursors by ICP-OES and Combustion Elemental Analysis

Biofuels, mainly derived from vegetable oils or the fermentation of plant material, have gained importance over the last few decades as more sustainable and environmentally friendly alternatives to fossil fuels. However, the production of raw materials for biofuel production has led to significant deforestation and competition for agricultural farmland with traditional crops used as staple food for humans and animals. To mitigate effects, new sources like algae have been developed for biofuels production.

Like fossil fuel refining, the biofuels refining process requires comprehensive chemical analysis to ensure the quality of raw materials as well as finished products. This includes monitoring various metals and non-metals that might have a negative impact on the process performance and the quality of finished products or generate harmful emissions and byproducts during the refining process. Analytical techniques, such as ICP-OES for metals analysis, as well as combustion-based elemental analysis for the detection of non-metals are commonly used in the fuels industries and regulated by local and international standard methods like ASTM and UOP methods.

This session gives an introduction and overview of the different types of biofuels and the progress made developing new source materials and production processes. Application examples using elemental analysis and ICP-OES outline the challenges laboratories face when analyzing samples from the biofuels production process and show how modern analytical technologies can overcome these. The production of biodiesel from waste animal fat will be presented as a case study.

Key learning objectives

• Introduction to different types of biofuels, their production process, including an overview of undesired chemical elements 
• Presentation of a fast, reliable, and cost-efficient elemental analysis solution for major elements such as carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and chlorine (C, N, S, X) to keep process and product quality at peak levels
• Presentation of the advantages of High-Resolution ICP-OES for trace metals analysis in biofuel precursors
• Case study of biodiesel production from waste animal fat and its quality monitoring