In biodiesel production, glycerol is formed as a side product and it is contained in the glycerol phase. This phase contains (besides glycerol): water, soaps, alcohol, traces of catalyst and glycerides and the remaining esters. In this paper, a new method for the determination of esters in the glycerol phase is introduced. The determination enables the minimization of the losses of biodiesel within the production process. It is based on the gradient RP-LC method (water and acetonitrile) with refractometric detection. The analysis is easy and the samples do not need any treatment (only dilution by water) and has a low detection limit. The results of this method were compared with the results of two other published methods: isocratic HPLC and GC. The disadvantage of these two methods is that they need extensive treatment of the sample, which takes many hours, and they are able to determine only the sum of esters. The new method is reliable, much faster and able to differentiate esters of almost each higher fatty acid (e.g. linoleic, linolenic, strearic alkyl ester) in the glycerol phase.

Department of Physical Chemistry Faculty of Chemical Technology University of Pardubice Studentská 573 532 10 Pardubice Czech Republic

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