The
aim of this study was to compare two methods for determining
the fatty acid methyl ester content of biodiesel by applying high-performance
liquid chromatography (HPLC-UV) and the reference method based on
gas chromatography (GC). The samples of biodiesel were also analyzed
by 1H NMR. External standards were used for the quantification
of fatty acid methyl esters by HPLC-UV. The analytical curves of the
methyl oleate, methyl linoleate, and methyl linolenate standards showed
good linearity (coefficient of determination ≥ 0.995). Cochran’s
test was used to assess the homoscedasticity of the analytical curves.
The limits of detection and quantitation were found: 0.0018% mass
and 0.0054% mass for methyl oleate, 0.0002% mass and 0.0007% mass
for methyl linoleate, and 0.0001% mass and 0.0004% mass for methyl
linolenate. The accuracy of the HPLC-UV method was assessed by determining
recovery (%), which resulted on values between 81.7 ± 0.2 and
110.9 ± 0.1. Precision was assessed by determining repeatability
(%), which was found to be between 0.2 and 1.3. The proposed HPLC-UV
method proved efficient in determining the fatty acid methyl ester
content of biodiesel and the paired t-test showed
it to correlate well with the reference method (GC).
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