Thermo Fisher Scientific ICP Spectrometer Selected by Imperium Renewables to Ensure Biodiesel Quality

Biodiesel is an environmentally friendly, clean burning, renewable energy source made from vegetable oils, waste oils or fats derived from crops. It is compatible with today’s existing fueling infrastructure and can be used in many conventional diesel engines. Imperium Renewables can produce 100 million gallons of biodiesel per year at nameplate capacity in its flagship facility, Imperium Grays Harbor in Washington. To ensure product quality and compliance with strict government standards, the company rigorously tests its biodiesel for contaminants. Because this commitment to quality is onerous with such high product throughput, the company requires highly reliable analytical instrumentation for its routine analyses.

Like most biodiesel plants, Imperium Renewables operates under stringent ASTM standards. For biodiesel to be sold as a fuel or blending stock, it must meet a set of requirements defined in ASTM D6751 or European Committee for Standardization (CEN) EN14214 standards. These standards specify the maximum allowable element concentrations in pure biodiesel finished product (B100). Until recently, the company outsourced feedstock samples and finished product testing to a third-party, and this was extremely expensive, time-consuming and inefficient. As a result, Imperium Renewables sought to create an in-house solution, focused on ICP technology, that could save time, reduce costs and increase productivity.

Imperium Renewables purchased the iCAP 6000 Series ICP because of Thermo Fisher’s proven track record of providing cost-effective instruments and strong customer support. Lack of space also made the compact iCAP 6000 Series an ideal solution. Nathan Shenk-Boright, laboratory manager at Imperium Renewables explains, “We are now using ICP in our in-house laboratory, instead of outsourcing our samples for analysis. This is extremely beneficial to our customers as we can provide fast service and ensure the optimal quality of our biodiesel.”

The iCAP 6000 Series is an ideal ICP for high-throughput elemental analysis laboratories seeking exceptional analytical performance in a practical, reliable instrument that saves laboratory space and reduces analysis times. The iCAP 6000 offers Imperium Renewables a faster alternative to their previous time-consuming and costly outsourcing methods. It is now possible for the company to improve productivity and reliability and ensure regulatory compliance by performing extremely accurate analysis of feedstock and biodiesel in-house.