Proposed Standard Will Support Diesel and Biodiesel Fuel Quality

A proposed ASTM International standard will help characterize the quality of diesel fuels and biodiesel blends. The proposed standard (WK51775) is being developed by the committee on petroleum products, liquid fuels, and lubricants (D02).

The proposed standard will be used to separate and determine the content of aromatics, nonaromatics, and fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) in middle distillates, including biodiesel blends with up to 20 percent by volume of FAME.

“The knowledge of total content of saturates and aromatics in middle distillates is useful to investigate the effects of petroleum processing on production of various finished fuels,” said ASTM International member Yang Tingting a senior engineer at the SINOPEC Research Institute of Petroleum Processing in China. Tingting notes that the method described in the standard is time-saving and environmentally friendly.

The proposed method could be used by refinery plants, diesel fuel producers, and analytical laboratories.