Quantification of strong and weak acidities in bio-oil via non-aqueous potentiometric titration》.pdf

Fuel 115 (2014) 652–657 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Fuel journal homepage: www.else /locate/fuel Quantification of strong and weak acidities in bio-oil via non-aqueous potentiometric titration Liping Wu a, Xun Hu a, Daniel Mourant a, Yi Wang a, Cyril Kelly a, Manuel Garcia-Perez b, Min He a, Chun-Zhu Li a,⇑ a Fuels and Energy Technology Institute, Curtin University of Technology, GPO Box U1987, Perth, WA 6845, Australia b Biological Systems Engineering, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA h i g h l i g h t s A titration method to quantify strong and weak acids in bio-oil was developed. The method can differentiate carboxylic acids and phenolics in bio-oils. Heavy carboxylic acids represent 29–45% (mol basis) of total carboxylic acids. Heavy phenolics dominated the total phenolic compounds in bio-oils. a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: In this study a non-aqueous potentiometric titration method has been developed to quantify the carbox- Received 20 April 2013 ylic acids and phenolics in bio-oil. Quarternary ammonium hydroxide was used as the titrant and a mix- Received in revised form 20 July 2013 ture of tert-butanol and acetone was used as the solvent to differentiate the acidic components with Accepted 23 July 2013 distinct acidities. The heavy carboxylic acids, which cannot be identified with GC–MS, account for ca. Available online 5 August 2013 29–45