No.7（2012）9.Influences of fuel dyes on determination of bioethanol content in gasoline by liquid scintillation counting

Shunji Yunoki, Masaaki Saito, Yoshiyasu Nagakawa

  We demonstrated the advantage of blue dye over red dye for the determination of bioethanol content in gasoline by the direct measurement of liquid scintillation counting (LSC). Simulated gasoline containing biofuel was prepared from bioethanol (10 and 25%), petroleum benzine, and Solvent Red 26 or Solvent Blue 35 (at concentrations of 2.5, 25 and 250ppm) as fuel dyes. The bioethanol content was determined precisely in the simulated gasoline containing the blue dye at a concentration for practical uses since the color quenching was corrected using the external standard method. On the other hand, the bioethanol content was overestimated in the red simulated gasoline. The overestimation was due to the stronger color quenching than that seen with the blue. The advantage of blue dye enables us to distinguish bioethanol-blended gasoline by its color and determine the bioethanol content by LSC.

Keywords
Bio-based content, Biofuel, Bioethanol, Liquid scintillation, Radiocarbon, ¹⁴C, Gasoline

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