AmSpec is investing in the future of fuels
The US EPA, has incentivized the use of renewable fuels requiring our renewable producing customers to participate in a credit trading program. Conventional refineries can generate credits through the co-processing of biomass feedstocks with conventional crude-oil feedstocks and produce the following Renewable Products:
- Renewable Diesel
- Renewable Gasoline
- Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF)
Our locations and fuels suitable for testing
AmSpec has three laboratory locations as of March 2022 – San Francisco and Los Angeles, California, as well as Houston, Texas. The following fuels are suitable for radiocarbon dating ASTM D6866:
- Bio-ethanol
- Renewable diesel
- Synthetic biodiesel / FAME (fatty acid methyl ester)
- Hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO)
How we perform radiocarbon dating
ASTM D6866 measures the amount of the C14 molecule within a renewable fuel sample.
- Because these co-processed materials have identical chemical structure and physical properties as traditional petroleum materials, a new method for identification was needed
- Crude feedstocks are fossil fuels, aged to a point where the radiocarbon isotopes (C14) are no longer detected
- Renewable feedstocks are recently materialized biocomponents and contain an abundance of C14 isotopes
- ASTM D6866 measures the percent modern carbon (pMC) and is used to determine the biogenic and biobased content of the renewable materials
