Determining the Acid Number of Biodiesel

Commerical biodiesel is composed of FAME. It may also contain small amounts of FA, which are quantified by an acid number, expressed as milligrams of potassium hydroxide required to neutralize 1 g of sample. In 2006, the ASTM D 6751 biodiesel acid‐number limit was harmonized with the European biodiesel value of 0.50. ASTM D 664 is the standard reference method for measuring the acid number of both ASTM biodiesel and petroleum‐derived diesel. This potentiometric method cites acceptable repeatability and mediocre reproducibility, but no information on accuracy. ASTM D 974 is a non‐aqueous colorimetric titration that uses potassium hydroxide in isopropanol as the titrant and p‐naphtholbenzein as indicator. It was designed for petroleum products and is suitable for colored samples. It has been tested on nine palmitic acid/soybean oil standards in the acid‐number range of 0.198 to 1.17. All accuracies were within 3.3%. The repeatability was approximately 6% at an acid number of 0.5. The reproducibility appears to be only slightly greater than the repeatability at an acid number of 0.5. It is concluded that ASTM D 974 is a good method for evaluating the acid‐number compliance of biodiesel samples.