Abstract

Journal of Near Infrared Spectroscopy
Volume 15 Issue 2, Pages 97–105 (2007)
doi: 10.1255/jnirs.714

Monitoring biodiesel fuel quality by near infrared spectroscopy

Pedro Felizardo,^a Patrícia Baptista,^a Margarida Sousa Uva,^a José C. Menezes^b and M. Joana Neiva Correia^*,a
aCentre of Chemical Processes, IST, Technical University of Lisbon, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001, Lisbon, Portugal. E-mail: qjnc@mail.ist.utl.pt
^bCentre for Biological and Chemical Engineering, IST, Technical University of Lisbon, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001, Lisbon, Portugal

Biodiesel is produced mainly by a transesterification reaction which involves the reaction of vegetable oils, animal fats or waste oils with an alcohol (such as methanol) in the presence of a catalyst (such as sodium hydroxide or methoxide). Since the presence of contaminants can cause severe engine problems, the assessment of the biodiesel quality is very important. This work reports the use of near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy to determine the content of water and methanol in industrial and laboratory-scale biodiesel samples. A qualitative analysis of the spectra by principal components analysis was carried out and partial least squares regression was used to develop calibration models between spectral and analytical data. The results indicate that the use of NIR spectroscopy, in combination with multivariate calibration, is a promising technique to assess the biodiesel quality in both laboratory-scale and industrial-scale samples.

Keywords: near infrared, biodiesel, fuel quality, PCA, water, methanol, PLS, inverse calibrations

---

Full-text article (420 kB) (subscribers only)

Buy article on-line for £20 (get immediate access)

Alerting Service

 RSS Feed

Permalink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1255/jnirs.714
QR Code (what is this?):

---