Voltammetric method for rapid determination of propyl gallate and its application for monitoring of biofuels quality

Abstract

A significant problem of biofuels is their low oxidative stability, which could be improved by addition of synthetic antioxidants. Therefore, the monitoring of antioxidant content plays a crucial role in using of biofuels. In this work, the new method of voltammetric determination of synthetic antioxidant propyl gallate (propyl 3,4,5-trihydroxybenzoate) in biofuels using linear sweep voltammetry with a gold disc electrode as the working electrode was developed. In comparison with other published papers dealing with the determination of propyl gallate in food samples, voltammetric analysis of antioxidant under study in biofuels requires a completely different approach of determination due to the composition of these samples. The proposed method enables the determination of antioxidant in model samples with excellent results. Its applicability was verified by analysis of practical biofuel samples. Limit of detection 0.39 lg cm-3 and limit of quantification 1.31 lg cm-3 were obtained. The proposed method can be used to control of the quality of biofuels.