Headspace solid-phase microextraction of analytes important to biofuels

Biodiesel is a renewable, biodegradable, clean burning fuel, produced from vegetable oils and animal fat. It is a mixture of fatty acid alkyl esters, products that result from the catalytic transesterification of lipids. The first part of this research describes the development of a new and direct method used to rapidly and quantitatively determine the amount of free methanol in biodiesel samples. The analytical method developed is different from the current standards for methanol determination, and it is the first headspace-SPME method used to extract methanol from biodiesel as matrix. The second part of this research describes the direct analysis of acetic acid and 2uraldehyde in an aqueous mixture using headspace SPME. The direct and accurate determination and quantitation of these two analytes is very important, as they can be inhibitors or food sources for microorganisms capable of producing lipids or ethanol