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2013-01-1139
Published 04/08/2013
Copyright © 2013 SAE International
doi:10.4271/2013-01-1139
saefuel.saejournals.org

Calculation of Heating Value for Diesel Fuels Containing

Biodiesel
Shailesh Martin Lopes
General Motors Company

Robert Furey
Furey Fuels Consulting, LLC

Pat Geng
General Motors Company

ABSTRACT
Biodiesel, a fuel comprised of mono-alkyl esters of long-chain fatty acids also known as Fatty Acid Methyl
Esters(FAME), derived from vegetable oils or animal fats, has become an important commercial marketplace automotive
fuel in the United States (US) and around the world over last few years. FAME biodiesels have many chemical and
physical property differences compared to conventional petroleum based diesel fuels. Also, the properties of biodiesel vary
based on the feedstock chosen for biodiesel production. One of the key differences between petroleum diesel fuels and
biodiesel is the energy content. The energy content, or heating value, is an important property of motor fuel, since it
directly affects the vehicle fuel economy. While the energy content can be measured by combustion of the fuel in a bomb
calorimeter, this analytical laboratory testing is time consuming and expensive. It would be more convenient to estimate
the energy content from other commonly measured fuel properties. Several standardized empirical methods have been
developed in the past for estimating the energy content of hydrocarbon fuels such as gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel.
However, with the addition of biodiesel to petroleum diesel fuel, the estimation methods developed for hydrocarbon diesel
fuels are not very accurate for use with biodiesel blends. This paper summarizes heating value test results from different
biodiesel blends representing the most common biodiesel feedstocks. New lower heating value predictive model equations
are proposed for diesel fuel blends containing biodiesel and the results from standardized measurement tests are compared
to the calculated values. This paper expands the scope of the empirical equations proposed in the SAE paper 2010-01-1571
for gasoline-ethanol blends to cover diesel fuel blends containing biodiesel.

CITATION: Lopes, S., Furey, R. and Geng, P., "Calculation of Heating Value for Diesel Fuels Containing Biodiesel," SAE
Int. J. Fuels Lubr. 6(2):2013, doi:10.4271/2013-01-1139.
____________________________________

INTRODUCTION 25°C and latent heat of vaporization of water is recovered by

A fuel's energy content is an important factor affecting
vehicle power output and fuel consumption. The lower
heating value (LHV) of a fuel is defined as the amount of
heat released by combusting a specified quantity of fuel
(initially at 25°C) in oxygen with all of the products being
gaseous and in which the latent heat of vaporization of water
in the reaction products is not recovered (water remains as
vapor). The higher heating value (or gross calorific value or
gross energy) of a fuel is defined as the amount of heat
released by a specified quantity (initially at 25°C) once it is
combusted and the products have returned to a temperature of
condensation of water vapor in the combustion products (1).
For internal combustion engines, energy contained in
water vapor cannot be practically recovered. Thus, it is more
appropriate to use LHV in automotive applications. Most
natural gas furnaces are non-condensing; the water vapor
produced by combustion goes up the chimney. But a few high
efficiency condensing furnaces are marketed. For such
applications it is appropriate to use the higher heating value
of the gas. In this paper, the terms heat of combustion or
heating value refer to lower heating value. Standard ASTM
test methods have been developed to measure the energy
content of liquid fuels by burning a weighed sample of the

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fuel in the presence of oxygen in a calorimeter (2,3). The
increase in temperature is used to calculate the energy content
in mass units of megajoules per kilogram (MJ/kg). Additional
information on standardized procedures for determining the
heat of combustion of fuels can be found in SAE J1498 (4).
There is much information in the literature concerning the
higher heating values for fuels like coal, other fossil fuels,
and biomass. Most of the calculations of heating values from
elemental composition were derived for higher heating
values. The higher heating values are related to lower heating
values by the following (5):
HHV=LHV+(mH2O/mf)hfgH2O
where mH2O/mf is the ratio of mass of water produced to
mass of fuel burned and ‘h’ is heat of vaporization of water at
the temperature and pressure of the products.
Or LHV is related to HHV as defined in reference (2)
LHV=HHV-0.2122*H
where H is mass percentage of hydrogen in the sample.
Since the energy contents of diesel fuel and biodiesel
blends are not routinely measured, it is useful to be able to
estimate the energy content from other commonly-measured
fuel properties. There is an empirical linear relationship
between density and energy content for fuels that do not
contain oxygenated compounds and this correlation is often
sufficient for routine work (6). It can also be extended to
other hydrocarbon fuels. The accuracy and precision of this
correlation can be further improved by including other
commonly-measured fuel properties in the correlation. There
are two standard ASTM procedures (7,8) for estimating
energy content from API gravity (9,10) (a measure of fuel
density) and aniline point (11) (an indication of the
aromaticity of the fuel), but aniline point is not routinely
measured for diesel fuel.
In the 1970s, the U.S. Air Force evaluated eight
correlation methods to estimate the energy content of aviation
fuels (12). These equations were developed by regression
analysis of commonly-measured fuel properties against
energy content measured in a bomb calorimeter. Six of the
eight methods used API gravity and aniline point. The other
two used API gravity, distillation temperatures (13), and
aromatic content (14). The precision of those two methods
was found to be superior to that of the actual measurement of
energy content in a calorimeter.
This last equation was subsequently standardized by
ASTM as D3338, “Standard Test Method for Estimation of
Net Heat of Combustion of Aviation Fuels” (15). It uses the
density, distillation temperatures, and aromatic content of the
fuel. A correction factor for the fuel sulfur content is also
applied. These properties are commonly measured for most
fuels.
Although the equation in ASTM D3338 for estimating
energy content was developed for aviation fuels, it can also
be used for other similar hydrocarbon fuels, including
gasoline and diesel fuels. The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency specifies this method for estimating the energy
content of test fuels used to measure vehicle fuel economy
(16).
ASTM D3338 is applicable only to non-oxygenated fuels,
whereas some diesel fuels in the U.S., as well as in some
other countries, now contain biodiesel. Typical biodiesel
(B100) has only about 90 percent as much energy per
kilogram as petroleum diesel fuel. Therefore, a modification
to the predictive energy content equation is needed to account
for the biodiesel. For this project, the ASTM D3338 equation
was used for the diesel fuel (hydrocarbon) portion of the fuel
only, excluding the biodiesel. To accomplish this, the density
and aromatic content of the diesel fuel portion of the fuel
blend were calculated, based on the concentration of
biodiesel in the complete fuel and properties of the biodiesel.
Although the distillation characteristics of the base diesel fuel
cannot be derived in this manner, the effect of distillation
temperatures on the calculation of energy content by D3338
is small.
Besides ASTM D3338, there are number of other
empirical equations to calculate heating values of fuels
(17,18,19,20). Most of these equations were derived from the
composition of the fuel, particularly for higher heating value
calculations for coal and recently for biomass. An equation
developed jointly by SGS and BMW from the fuel's
elemental composition has been commonly used among
automotive companies for lower heating value calculations
for market fuel surveys (21). However, the common
empirical equations have poor precisions for diesel fuels
containing biodiesel as discussed in this study similar to
gasoline fuels containing ethanol (22). This paper
summarizes test results for heating values from recent retail
fuel surveys of diesel fuels and biodiesel blends in the U.S.,
as well as laboratory blends of different types and levels of
biodiesel with emissions certification diesel fuels. The
heating values obtained by different methods are compared
and discussed. New empirical equations for calculation of
heating values are proposed for biodiesel blended diesel
fuels.
EXPERIMENTAL
This study included five biodiesel fuels representing the
common commercial feedstock for biodiesels and five
ultralow sulfur petroleum diesel fuels. The biodiesel types
were Soy Methyl Ester (SME), Rapeseed Methyl Ester
(RME), Corn Methyl Ester (CME), Animal Fat Methyl Ester
(AME) and Waste Vegetable Oil Methyl Ester (WVOME).
The common properties for the base diesel fuels and the
biodiesels (B100) were retested according to standard ASTM
methods. The key properties for the diesel fuels are listed in
Table 1 while the key properties and fatty acid profiles for
biodiesels (B100) are shown in Table 2 and Table 3
respectively. FAME content for SME, RME and CME was
>90 wt% while for AME it was 86 wt% and for WVOME it
was just 43 wt%. Certificate of analysis obtained for these
samples showed that they met the requirements of ASTM
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Table 1. Diesel fuels characterization.

Table 2. Biodiesel fuels characterization.

D6751 for B100. Since, ASTM D6751 does not specify
FAME content limit and these were commercial samples,
they were considered acceptable for the scope of this study. A
separate study to understand the lower FAME content
especially in WVOME is underway. The US certification
diesel (EPA Generic 40CFR 86.113-07) and Euro IV
certification diesel fuels were further selected as standard
base fuels to prepare a total of fourteen blends of different
types and concentrations of biodiesels as described in Table
4. The types of biodiesel blends and their key properties are
listed in Table 5. Consideration was given to whether the
better precision method for heating value measurement,
ASTM D4809, should be used instead of ASTM D240
method in this project. The repeatability is 0.091 and 0.13 for
ASTM D4809 and ASTM D240, respectively. The
reproducibility is 0.45 and 0.40 for ASTM D4809 and ASTM
D240, respectively. Since all the heating value measurements
reported in this paper were performed in one lab, which did
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410 Lopes et al / SAE Int. J. Fuels Lubr. / Volume 6, Issue 2(June 2013)

Table 3. Fatty acid characterization of biodiesel fuels.

Table 4. Biodiesel blends used for this Study.

not have the capability to run ASTM D4809, ASTM D240
was utilized for this work. Furthermore, the repeatability
from the other measured properties in the empirical equations
may contribute greater errors than the two methods
themselves.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. Heating Values for Diesel Fuels
Containing Biodiesel
Typical commercial biodiesel has lower energy content
compared to regular petroleum diesel fuel and hence diesel
fuel containing biodiesel is expected to have lower energy
content compared to diesel fuel itself. Figure 1 shows the
relationship between calculated heating values as per ASTM
D3338 method and density for US market place diesel and
biodiesel blends samples from 2008 winter and 2011 summer
diesel survey. The biodiesel content in the survey samples
varied from 0 to 46.1 vol%. The data was segregated in five
distinct groups based on the biodiesel content to determine if
there was a correlation between the heating values calculated
by ASTM D3338 and the biodiesel content. Since the
biodiesel type in the fuel survey samples was not known, it
was assumed that all blends were made from SME biodiesel.
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Table 5. Biodiesel blends characterization.

This assumption was made since soybean oil is the most
common feedstock for biodiesel production in the US, and
also heating values are comparable for most common types of
commercial biodiesels as shown in Table 2 of the
Experimental Section. The minor differences in the densities
of different types of biodiesels are expected to have
negligible influence on the calculations of heating values for
biodiesel blends with petroleum diesel fuels. All samples in
the survey except three fulfilled the requirements for ultra-
low sulfur diesel fuel (15ppm maximum). However, the
appropriate sulfur correction factor was applied in
calculations of the heating values as described in ASTM
D3338 method. The actual energy content of the fuel samples
was not measured.
Figure 1 shows the plot of calculated heating values
versus fuel density for the survey samples with varying levels
of biodiesel content. Though it is difficult to provide
definitive quantitative metric to correlate fuel density and
heating value for the different biodiesel groups in Figure 1, it
is reasonable to expect that for similar range of density,
biodiesel blend samples, especially with higher biodiesel
content (>B20), would have lower heating values compared
to petroleum diesel fuels with no biodiesel due to inherent
lower energy contents of pure biodiesels. However, results in
Figure 1 show that there is less correlation between fuel
density and heating values, with many biodiesel containing
samples having higher energy content than petroleum diesel
of similar density and no biodiesel content. Thus, using
ASTM D3338 method to calculate heating values for diesel
fuels containing biodiesel would provide inaccurate values.
Figure 1 indicates that ASTM D3338 method may
overestimate the heating values of biodiesel blended fuels and
it can be inferred that an increase in the fuel's density and the
distillation temperatures due to biodiesel content outweighs
the decrease in the aromatics content. ASTM D3338 could be
useful to obtain a rough estimation of the heating value of
diesel fuel with lower biodiesel contents (5 volume % and
lower). However, for accurate calibration in engine and
vehicle tests, the ASTM D3338 method needs to be modified
or measurements using actual bomb calorimeter methods
such as ASTM D240 should be used.
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412 Lopes et al / SAE Int. J. Fuels Lubr. / Volume 6, Issue 2(June 2013)

Figure 1. Calculated heating value for US market diesel/biodiesel samples as per ASTM D3338 without modifications.

Another empirical equation as shown in Equation 1(from
reference 21) is also known to be effective in calculation of
heating values of diesel fuels. Equation 1 is based on the
fuel's elemental composition of carbon, hydrogen and
oxygen. Since Equation 1 takes into account the oxygenate
content of the fuel, it is expected to have better accuracy in
predicting heating values of diesel fuels with biodiesel
content. To examine the accuracy of these empirical methods,
actual bomb calorimeter tests were performed as per ASTM
D240 method on the fuel samples selected for this study as
described in the experimental section. These results were
compared to the calculations made by empirical methods
using ASTM D3338 and Equation 1 as shown in Table 6.
Equation 1
As this was a scoping study, only one measurement by
ASTM D240 was obtained for each sample in the study. The
repeatability of ASTM D240 is about 0.13 MJ/kg and it was
considered acceptable for this study. Table 6 shows that
overall Equation 1 provides better estimation of the heating
values for pure biodiesels and diesel fuels containing
biodiesel compared to the standard ASTM D3338. The
accuracy of estimation by Equation 1 seems to improve with
increasing levels of biodiesel content in the diesel fuel.
However, Equation 1 seems to overestimate the heating
values of the diesel fuels without biodiesel content.
The next step was to modify ASTM D3338 and Equation
1 to further improve the accuracy of these empirical methods
to match the ASTM D240 measurements. The modification
to ASTM D3338 involved using the published ASTM D3338
equation to calculate the heating value of the hydrocarbon
part of the fuel, and then combining the result with the
heating value and concentration of biodiesel in the fuel. The
procedure is as follows:
• Using the measured density and aromatics content of the
fuel and the concentration and density of biodiesel, determine
the density and aromatics content of the hydrocarbon portion
of the fuel. Although the distillation temperatures of the base
petroleum diesel fuel cannot be readily estimated in this
manner, the effect of a change in distillation temperatures is
expected to be minimal.
• Enter these derived properties in the equation described in
ASTM D3338 to estimate the energy content of the
hydrocarbon portion of the fuel, in MJ/kg. Apply the sulfur
correction as explained in ASTM D3338. The sulfur contents
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Table 6. Comparison of LHV calculated by empirical equations and ASTM D240 measurements.

of most of today's diesel fuels are quite low and have calculations. If the calculated heating value of this B20 blend
negligible effect on the fuel's energy content. using the standard ASTM D3338 method is 42.94 MJ/kg as
described above, then accounting for biodiesel concentration
• Using the estimated energy content of the hydrocarbon
and its heating value using the proposed ASTM D3338 (mod)
portion of the fuel, the concentrations of biodiesel in the
equation gives an LHV result of 41.8 MJ/kg as follows:
original fuel, and the measured energy content of biodiesel,
For B20, LHV by ASTM D3338 (mod) = 42.94 × (1- 0.2)
calculate the energy content of the complete biodiesel
+ 37.24 × 0.2 = 41.8 MJ/kg
blended diesel fuel. The density and energy content for
The modifications to ASTM D3338 are relevant in
biodiesel will vary based on the feedstock. For the US
calculating the correct heating values for biodiesel blends
market, it is reasonable to use the density (885.1 g/l) and
only. Modifications to ASTM D3338 do not apply to
energy content (37.24MJ/kg) of SME biodiesel in
calculations of heating values of petroleum diesel fuels and
calculations of energy content of blends using modified
pure biodiesels (B100). For petroleum diesel fuels, ASTM
ASTM D3338 method. In any case, the difference in the
D3338 (mod) is not relevant due to absence of biodiesel, and
densities and heating values of different types of commercial
for pure biodiesels it does not apply since one of the input
biodiesel are small as shown in Table 2 and is expected to
parameters in the modified equation is the measured energy
have only a minor effect on the calculation of heating value
content of biodiesel.
using modified ASTM D3338 method.
Equation 1 shows a good match with ASTM D240
The following method is proposed based on above measurements for diesel fuels containing biodiesel. However,
procedure: the accuracy of Equation 1 can be further improved to
LHV by ASTM D3338 (mod) = LHV (Std.D3338) × (1- account for oxygen content in biodiesel for determination of
Biodiesel volume fraction) + LHV (Biodiesel, measured) × the heating value. An arbitrary solution is proposed to change
Biodiesel volume fraction the oxygen coefficient from −0.001 to −0.122 in modified
Example: Assume 20% SME biodiesel blend in petroleum Equation 1(mod) as follows:
diesel (B20). For SME biodiesel, the density value of 885.1
g/l and energy content of 37.24MJ/kg are used in the
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414 Lopes et al / SAE Int. J. Fuels Lubr. / Volume 6, Issue 2(June 2013)

Table 7. Comparison of LHV calculated by modifications to empirical equations and ASTM D240 measurements

D3338 (mod) are in better agreement with the measured

Equation 1(mod)
Compared to original Equation 1 the new Equation
1(mod) provides more accurate calculated heating values for
pure biodiesels and biodiesel blends. For petroleum diesel
fuels, the original and modified versions of Equation 1
provide the same values since new petroleum diesel fuels
have negligible to no oxygen content. The heating values for
the experimental samples obtained by using modified
empirical equations are in good agreement with measured
values obtained by ASTM D240 as shown in Table 7. For
biodiesel blend samples, the average percentage error
between measured and calculated heating values by standard
ASTM D3338 is 3.8% but this percentage error reduces to
0.02% when using ASTM D3338 (mod) for calculation of
heating values. Similarly, for pure biodiesels and biodiesel
blends, the percentage error between measured values and
calculated values by original Equation 1 is 1.9% but this
percentage error reduces to 0.38% when using Equation
1(mod) for calculation of heating values. Overall, for
biodiesel blended fuels the results calculated using ASTM
values compared to values calculated using other empirical
methods.
Table 8 below shows the average percentage error for
calculated heating values obtained by the original and
modified empirical equations for each group of experimental
samples with different biodiesel contents. As can be seen, the
percentage error increases for the original empirical
equations, ASTM D3338 and Equation 1, with increasing
biodiesel content. This indicates that the original empirical
equations could be used to obtain reasonably accurate
estimated heating values for lower biodiesel blends (5 vol%
or lower). Percentage error increase with higher biodiesel
content is larger for ASTM D3338 compared to Equation 1.
However, the modified versions of both of the empirical
methods provide better accuracy as shown by lower
percentage errors and good agreement to the measured
values. The average of the measured heating values by
ASTM D240 for the samples tested in this study is 40.91
MJ/kg. The repeatability of the ASTM D240 method is 0.13
MJ/kg and reproducibility is 0.40 MJ/kg. The average
percentage error for different biodiesel groups is 0.08% for
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Table 8. Percent error in heating values of the empirical equations with measured values

Figure 2. Calculated heating value for US market diesel/biodiesel samples as per ASTM D3338 (mod) for different biodiesel
content groups

ASTM D3338 (mod) and 0.28% with using Equation 1(mod).
This indicates that the calculated heating values using the
modified empirical equations would provide precision well
within the reproducibility of ASTM D240 method.
The ASTM D3338 (mod) method was applied to
recalculate heating values of the fuel survey samples for
comparison with standard ASTM D3338 method. The heating
values for different biodiesel groups as compared to original
results are shown in Figure 2. The results exhibit a clear trend
of larger differences in calculated heating values by the two
methods with increasing biodiesel content independent of the
properties of the base diesel fuel. This confirms the results
seen with the controlled experimental samples wherein the
ASTM D3338 (mod) method showed better accuracy for
higher biodiesel content samples compared to the standard
ASTM D3338 method.
B. Model Development
The modified empirical equations exhibited excellent
accuracy in calculation of the heating values from fuel
properties. The empirical methods and the results indicate
that fuel heating values have strong correlations with both
diesel fuel density and its biodiesel content. Very strong
correlation can be found with increasing biodiesel content as
shown in Table 8 and Figure 2. However, other fuel
properties, including aromatics and distillation temperatures,
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416 Lopes et al / SAE Int. J. Fuels Lubr. / Volume 6, Issue 2(June 2013)

Table 9. Correlation between fuel properties and ASTM D240 measurement on controlled blended fuels

Table 10. Summary of R2 for the models based on regression analysis

also impact heat of combustion. The correlation of those
properties can only be performed with known value of
properties for controlled blended fuels. The properties of the
fourteen biodiesel blended fuels in Table 5 were used to
derive correlations with measured lower heating values
obtained by ASTM D240 method.
A statistical analysis was performed to determine the
Pearson product moment correlation coefficient with fuel
properties as variables for determination of the lower heating
values measured by ASTM D240 method. The Pearson
correlation coefficient describes both the strength and
direction of the relationship. The correlation coefficient
ranges from −1 to 1. The p-values were also computed to
determine if the relationship between the variables is
significant. Table 9 lists the results of the computation.
From this analysis, it can be seen that the lower heating
values are strongly correlated with aromatics, density,
biodiesel content, distillation profile, carbon, hydrogen and
oxygen contents. It is not surprising that ASTM D3338
method uses aromatics, density, T10, T50 and T90 in the
calculation of heating value while Equation 1 uses carbon,
hydrogen, and oxygen in the calculation of heating value.
These are important fuel parameters correlating to the heat of
formation during the combustion process. The first law of
thermodynamics relates to changes in internal energy or
enthalpy to heat and work transfer interactions. Since the
enthalpies of formation of the reactant species can't be
precisely determined, the increase in enthalpies from reactant
to products for complete combustion is generally measured in
calorimeters as heating value at constant pressure or volume.
Other fuel properties such as T10, T50, T90, carbon and
oxygen contents are the result of the compositional changes
and content of biodiesel in fuel. Their effects on the heating
values are similar to the effects of aromatics and biodiesel.
The effects of fuel properties on the heating values are
compounded since some properties are correlated with each
other. Using fuel properties which can be readily determined,
simple models for estimation of the heating values can be
developed. With the correlation results from Table 9, the
regression analyses were performed to determine several
relationships to provide a quick and easy way for finding
acceptable lower heating values from common fuel analysis.
The following equations were generated:
Model 1: LHV= 42.66 - (0.0518 × Biodiesel Content,
volume %)
Model 2: LHV= 43.41 - (0.0596 × Biodiesel Content,
volume %) - (0.031 × (Aromatics, volume %)
Model 3: LHV= 58.47 - (0.0498 × (Biodiesel Content,
volume %) - (0.065 × Aromatics, volume %) - (0.023 × T90,
°C)
Model 4: LHV = 42.81 - (0.508 × O, weight %)
Model 5: LHV = 64.17 - (0.0439 × Biodiesel Content,
volume %) - (25 × Density, g/l)
Five new models proposed above are based on commonly
measured fuel properties and can help provide quick
estimation of the heating values. On the basis of R2 values of
the five new model equations shown in Table 10 below, it is
seen that Model 2, Model 3 and Model 5 equations could be
used to provide quick and reasonably accurate estimation of
the heating values. Of these three models, Model 5 equation
based on fuel's density and biodiesel content which are
commonly measured fuel properties will be the easiest
equation to use for estimation of biodiesel blends energy
content.
To further examine the new proposed calculation
methods, fuel property data was obtained on nine new market
place fuels. This fuel set consisted of B10 and B20 biodiesel
blends. The data contained heating values measured by
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Table 11. Verification of empirical equations
ASTM D240 as well as other fuel properties including
density, biodiesel content and compositional analysis.
Aromatic content was not available for all fuels and hence
calculations based on ASTM D3338 and ASTM D3338
(mod) were not included in verification of empirical
equations for this fuel set. The results of the comparison are
shown in Table 11 below along with average errors from each
method to examine which method provides the best fit to
experimental measurements. As seen from these verification
results Equation 1(mod) and Model 5 provide a better fit than
Equation 1. The calculated heating values by Equation
1(mod) and Model 5 are, on average, within the
reproducibility of 0.40 MJ/kg for ASTM D240 method.
SUMMARY/CONCLUSIONS
Fuel properties, including the energy content, of diesel
fuel blended with biodiesel are different compared to pure
hydrocarbon diesel fuel. The energy content or lower heating
value of biodiesel blended diesel fuels has correlation with its
physical and chemical properties such as density, aromatics,
distillation and biodiesel content. The accuracy of the
standard ASTM D3338 method and a composition equation
for predicting the lower heating value of the biodiesel
blended diesel fuels relative to calorific measurements can be
improved, especially at >B5 biodiesel content.
This study correlates commonly measured laboratory fuel
chemical and physical properties with experimental ASTM
D240 measurements to derive new methods for calculating
lower heating values for biodiesel blended diesel fuels. The
results obtained by using the new methods and equations
showed good match to the measured values and confirmed
that the heating value of the fuel has strong correlation with
its physical properties and composition. The following
conclusions can be drawn regarding new methods for
calculation of lower heating values for biodiesel blend fuels.
1. Modified ASTM D3338 (mod) method to calculate the
energy content of the hydrocarbon portion of the biodiesel
blend and then account for biodiesel content, can provide
417
lower heating value estimates within an average of 0.08
percent error.
2. Modified compositional Equation 1(mod) which
increases the oxygen coefficient compared to Equation 1
(mod) can provide the estimation of fuel heating values
within average of 0.28 percent error.
3. New models based on commonly measured fuel
properties are proposed to help provide quick estimation of
the heating values. Among the proposed new models, Model
5 equation based on the fuel's density and biodiesel content is
expected to provide reasonably accurate estimation of energy
content for biodiesel blended fuels.
4. ASTM D3338 (mod) and Equation (1) (mod) methods
can be effectively used to calculate heating values of the
biodiesel blended fuels as alternative to replace ASTM D240.
The results calculated by these two modified methods are
within the reproducibility of the more expensive and time
consuming calorimeter bomb experimental measurement
method defined in ASTM D240.
REFERENCES
1. Ulf Bossel, http://www.efcf.com/reports/E10.pdf, Well-to-Wheel
Studies, Heating Values, and the Energy Conservation Principle.
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CONTACT INFORMATION
Shailesh Lopes, PhD
Senior Fuels Engineer
General Motors Company.
shailesh.lopes@gm.com

Yunpeng(Pat)Geng, PhD
Supervisor, Fuels Group
General Motors Company
pat.1.geng@gm.com

Robert L. Furey, PhD

Furey Fuels Consulting, LLC
robert.furey59@gmail.com

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to acknowledge Kenneth Burt and
Douglas Conran at GM Milford Proving Ground for their
assistance in fuel analysis