The present paper concerns to predict the sulfur concentration in biodiesel/diesel blends in the range of 5-100 mg L -1 of sulfur using spectrofluorimetry and partial least squares multivariate calibration (PLS). The calibration set consisted of samples with 10 and 20% (B10 and B20) of biodiesel in diesel with sulfur addition of 5-100 mg L -1. Two PLS models were constructed, one to predict the concentrations of sulfur in B10 blends that presented coefficient of determination (R 2 ) values of 0.9867377 and 0.9801064, respectively, for calibration and validation. The other PLS model predict the concentrations of sulfur in B20 that presented R 2 values of 0.9949219 and 0.8573713, respectively, for calibration and validation. Therefore, the models showed adequate efficiency to predict changes in the concentration of sulfur in biodiesel/diesel blends B10 and B20.Keywords: biodiesel, multivariate analysis, spectrofluorimetry, sulfur, diesel
IntroductionUntil recently, one of the main problems regarding to the emission of particulate matter was the high sulfur content in diesel fuel commercialized by the Brazilian automotive industry.1 Sulfur oxides are classified as emission compounds which pose a risk to human health; however, they are subject to regulations.2 In Brazil, to reduce the atmospheric pollution caused by the sulfur present in the petroleum derivative, this fuel has been produced with a lower sulfur content, gradually passing from S1800 (1800 mg kg -1 of sulfur) to S500 (500 mg kg -1 of sulfur), followed by S50 (50 mg kg -1 of sulfur) to S10 (10 mg kg -1 of sulfur).
3Diesel fuel is mainly composed of alkanes with 10 to 20 carbon chains, therefore, consisting mostly of long-chain saturated hydrocarbons. They also have aromatic compounds, alkylated cycloalkanes, and even compounds that feature heteroatoms, such as sulfur, nitrogen and oxygen. Benzothiophenes and dibenzothiophenes are among the sulfur compounds found in diesel fuel. 4 There are reports of the determination of sulfur content in fuels using different analytical methods, namely: energydispersive X-ray fluorescence, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP OES), inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy, atomic absorption spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. With the results obtained it was possible to conclude that high sulfur containing diesel fuels were from heavy diesel engines and diesel fuel-like liquids obtained by thermal degradation of waste polymers.
5There are also procedures using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP OES).6,7 The norms ISO 20884:2004 8 and ISO 20846:2011 9 are used to determine sulfur content of automotive fuels using wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and ultraviolet fluorescence method.It was developed a procedure for the determination of total sulfur in petroleum and derivatives using ICP OES. 10,11 For this procedure, the samples were prepared as emulsions. The developed procedure has allowed the determination of the total sulfur ...