American Journal of Analytical Chemistry, 2013, 4, 273-276 doi:10.4236/ajac.2013.46034 Published Online June 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ajac) Determination of the Biodiesel Content in Petrodiesel/Biodiesel Blends: A Method Based on Uv-Visible Spectroscopy and Chemometrics Tools Armando Guerrero 1 , Francisco Anguebes 1,2* , Mepivoseth Castelán 1 , Victorino Morales 3 , Ismael León 4 , José C. Zavala 2 , Atl V. Córdova 2 1 Campus Tabasco, Colegio de Postgraduados, Córdoba, México 2 Facultad de Química, Universidad Autónoma del Carmen, Av. Concordia, Col. Benito Juárez, Ciudad del Carmen, Ciudad del Carmen, México 3 Campus Córdoba, Colegio de Postgraduados, Carr. Fed. Córdoba-Veracruz, Amatlán de los Reyes, Córdoba, México 4 Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, Centro de Investigaciones Químicas (CIQ), Av. Universidad, Cuernavaca, Cuernavaca, México Email: * fanguebes@pampano.unacar.mx Received April 11, 2013; revised May 21, 2013; accepted June 4, 2013 Copyright © 2013 Armando Guerrero et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Li- cense, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT In this work, we developed an analytical method based on UV-visible spectroscopy to determine the concentration of biodiesel from African palm in blends of petrodiesel. Seventy-five samples with biodiesel concentrations between 0-100 wt% were prepared. The spectral fingerprints that were obtained from the analysis of the samples by UV-visible spec- troscopy were used to build predictive model using PLS regression. The predictive ability of the models was evaluated through statistical parameters: the standard error of calibration (SEC), the standard error of validation (SEV), the corre- lation coefficient of calibration (r Cal) and validation (r Val), the ratio (SEC/SEV), the coefficient of determination R 2 , the paired data Student’s t-test, cross-validation and external validation. The results indicate that the PLS model predicts the concentration of biodiesel from African palm with high precision in mixtures with petrodiesel. The method devel- oped in this study can be applied to determine the concentration of biodiesel African palm in mixtures of petrodiesel in a more rapid and economical way. Moreover, this method has less analytical errors and is more environmentally friendly than the conventional methods. Keywords: African Palm; Petrodiesel/Biodiesel Blends; Regression Model PLS; Spectroscopy UV-Visible 1. Introduction Biodiesel is a renewable fuel comprised of mono-alkyl esters and obtained from the transesterification of vegetable oils or animal fat in the presence of a catalyst. The use of biodiesel is increasing given that it is made into motor fuel by mixing with petrodiesel [1]. The current and most used mixtures are: 2%, 3%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% bio- diesel, which are denoted as B2, B3, B5, B10, B15 and B20, respectively. Biodiesel use helps to reduce fossil fuel consumption and decrease pollution, primarily car- bon dioxide emission [2]. Generally, the quality control of fuels is performed by highly specialized analytical techniques, such as gas or liquid chromatography [3,4] for which the equipment and reagents are expensive. These techniques are destructive and emit pollutants into the environment. Additionally, these analyses are expensive and time-consuming. It is therefore necessary to develop efficient, fast eco- nomical and environmentally friendly analytical techni- ques. Spectrometric techniques and chemometrics tools are useful for this purpose. Infrared spectroscopy and mul- tivariate analysis [5-8] have been used in predictive mo- dels to determine the biodiesel concentrations present in petrodiesel-biodiesel blends. The fluorescence spectros- copy [9,10], the nuclear magnetic resonance [11] and the UV-visible spectroscopy [8,12,13] have also been used for the same purposes. Due to the use of biodiesel-petrodiesel blends world- wide and the potential of palm oil for use in the manufac- ture of biodiesel, the aim of this study was to build pre- * Corresponding author. Copyright © 2013 SciRes. AJAC