Oxidation stability of biodiesel fuels and blends using the Rancimat and PetroOXY methods. Effect of 4-allyl-2,6-dimethoxyphenol and catechol as biodiesel additives on oxidation stability

In the present work, several fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) have been synthesized from various fatty acid feedstocks: used frying olive oil, pork fat, soybean, rapeseed, sunflower, and coconut. The oxidation stabilities of the biodiesel samples and of several blends have been measured simultaneously by both the Rancimat method, accepted by EN14112 standard, and the PetroOXY method, prEN16091 standard, with the aim of finding a correlation between both methodologies. Other biodiesel properties such as composition, cold filter plugging point (CFPP), flash point (FP), and kinematic viscosity have also been analyzed using standard methods in order to further characterize the biodiesel produced. In addition, the effect on the biodiesel properties of using 4-allyl-2,6-dimethoxyphenol and catechol as additives in biodiesel blends with rapeseed and with soybean has also been analyzed. The use of both antioxidants results in a considerable improvement in the oxidation stability of both types of biodiesel, especially using catechol. Adding catechol loads as low as 0.05% (m/m) in blends with soybean biodiesel and as low as 0.10% (m/m) in blends with rapeseed biodiesel is sufficient for the oxidation stabilities to comply with the restrictions established by the European EN14214 standard. An empirical linear equation is proposed to correlate the oxidation stability by the two methods, PetroOXY and Rancimat. It has been found that the presence of either catechol or 4-allyl-2,6-dimethoxyphenol as additives affects the correlation observed.