KENYA STANDARD  DKS 2227:2021  
ICS 67.08 0.20 
Second Edition  
 
 © KEBS 2021   
 Petroleum and pe troleum products — 
Automotive biodiesel fuel  — Specification  
 
 
 
 DKS 2227:2021  
ii © KEBS 2021  – All rights reserved  
 TECHNICAL COMMITTEE REPRESENTATION  
The following organizations were represented on the Technical Committee:  
ADS Africa  
BASF E.A.  
Beyond Borders  
Consumer Information Network  
CSI International Ltd.  
D.T. Dobie  
Diverse Management Consultancy Ltd.  
Geoscan Consultants  
Gulf Energy  
Heller Petroleum Ltd.  
IMCD Kenya  
Inspectorate E.A. Ltd.  
Intertek  
ISUZU E.A  
African Gas and Oil Company Ltd  
Rubis Energy (K) Ltd.  
Kenya Accreditation Services  
Kenya Petroleum Refineries Limited  
Kenya Power and Lighting Company  
Kurrent Technogies Ltd.  
Lacheka Lubricants Ltd.  
Lubrican ts 
National Environment Management Authority  
National Oil Corporation of Kenya  
OLA Energy  
Optimum  
Petroleum Institute of East Africa  
Sepyana Oil E.A  
SGS  
EPRA  
Simba Corp Ltd.  
Supply Cor  
Synergy Lubricants  
Total K Ltd.  
Vivo Energy  
Kenya Bureau of Standards — Secretariat  
REVISION OF KENYA STANDARDS  
In order to keep abreast of progress in industry, Kenya Standards shall be regularly reviewed.  Suggestions for 
improvements to published standards, addressed to the Managing Director, Kenya Bureau of Sta ndards, are 
welcome.  
© Kenya Bureau of Standards, 2021  
Copyright. Users are reminded that by virtue of Section 25 of the Copyright Act, Cap. 130 of 2001 of  the Laws of Kenya, copyright subsists 
in all Kenya Standards and except as provided under Section 25  of this Act, no Kenya Standard produced by Kenya Bureau of Standards 
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system in any form or transmitted by any means without prior permission in writing f rom the 
Managing Director.   KENYA STANDARD  DKS 2227:2021  
ICS 67.08 0.20 
Second  Edition  
 
© KEBS 2021  – All rights reserved  iii 
  Petroleum and pe troleum products  —
Automotive biodiesel fuel  — Speci fication  
 
 
Kenya Bureau of Standards,  Popo Road, Off Mombasa Road,  
P.O. Box 54974 - 00200,  Nairobi, Kenya  
 +254 020 6948000, + 254 722202137, + 254 734600471  
 info@kebs.org  
 @KEBS_ke  
 kenya bureau of standards (kebs)  
  
DKS 2227:2021  
iv © KEBS 2021  – All rights reserved  
 Foreword  
This Kenya Standard was prepared by the Petroleum and Petroleum Products Technical Committee under the 
guidance of the Standards Projects Committee, and it is in accordance with the procedures of the Kenya Bureau 
of Standards.  
This second edition cancels and replaces  the first edition (KS 2227:2010), which has been technically revised .  
Biodiesel is an ester (more generally methyl ester) usually produced from vegetable oil.  
Vegetable oils are obtained classically by simple pressing of oilseeds, such as jatropha seeds , rapeseeds, 
sunflower, soybeans, etc. All of these oils, however, offer too much viscosity and a cetane number (the 
ability to auto -ignition) too low, making their direct use in traditional diesel engine difficult.   
In order to obtain similar characteris tics with respect to conventional fossil diesel fuel, such vegetable oils 
must undergo a reaction of transesterification with an alcohol (usually methanol, CH3OH) in the presence of 
a catalyst, usually potassium hydroxide (KOH) or sodium (NaOH). It should be noted that the use of ethanol 
is also considered, but very rarely used on a commercial scale. The transesterification reaction is carried out 
at moderate temperature (20 -80 °C) and atmospheric pressure.   
The production of biodiesel is relatively simple  from a technical standpoint, which also allows the 
construction of small decentralized production units without excessive extra costs. Such a situation 
represents a definite advantage, thus limiting the transport of raw materials and permitting, in a tran sition 
phase, to start with modest  sized installations  
 KENYA STANDARD  DKS 2227:2021  
 
© KEBS 2021  – All rights reserved  1 
  
Petroleum and pe troleum products  —Automotive biodiesel fuel — 
Specification  
1 Scope  
This Draft Kenya Standard specifies requirements, sampling  and test methods for marketed and delivered fatty 
acid methyl esters (FAME)/ biodiesel to be used either as automotive fuel for diesel engines at 100% 
concentration, or as an extender for automotive fuel for diesel engi nes. At 100% concentration, it is applicable 
to fuel for use in diesel engine vehicles designed or subsequently adapted to run on 100% FAME/biodiesel  
2 Normative references  
The following referenced documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content 
constitutes requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated 
references, the latest edition of th e referenced document (including any amendments) applies . 
EN 116, Diesel and domestic heating fuels – Determination of cold filter plugging point  
EN 590, Automotive fuels - Diesel - Requirements and test methods  
EN 12662, Liquid petroleum products - Dete rmination of contamination in middle distillates  
EN 14103, Fat and oil derivatives - Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) – Determination of ester and linolenic acid 
methyl ester contents  
EN 14104, Fat and oil derivatives – Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) - Determination of acid Value  
EN 14105, Fat and oil derivatives – Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) – Determination of free and total glycerol 
and mono -, di-, triglyceride contents - Reference method  
EN 14106, Fat and oil derivatives – Fatty Acid Methyl Ester s (FAME) – Determination of free glycerol content  
EN 14107, Fat and oil derivatives – Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) – Determination of phosphorus content by 
inductively coupled plasma (ICP) emission spectrometry  
EN 14108, Fat and oil derivatives - Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) – Determination of sodi um content by 
atomic absorption spectrometry  
EN 14109, Fat and oil derivatives - Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) – Determination of potassium content by 
atomic absorption spectrometry  
EN 14110, Fat and oil derivatives – Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) - Determination of methanol content  
EN 14111, Fat and oil derivatives – Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) – Determination of iodine value  
EN 14112, Fat and oil derivatives - Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) - Determination of oxidation stability 
(accelerated o xidation test)  
EN 14538, Fat and oil derivatives – Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) – Determination of Ca and Mg content by 
optical emission spectral analysis with inductively coupled plasma (ICP OES)  
ISO 2160, Petroleum products - Corrosiveness to copper - Copper strip test (ISO 2160:1998)   
2 © KEBS  2021  – All rights reserved  
 ISO 3104, Petroleum products - Transparent and opaque liquids - Determination of  kinematic viscosity and 
calculation of dynamic viscosity (ISO 3104:1994. incl. ISO Tech. Cor. No 1)  
ISO 3170, Petroleum liquids – Manual  sampling (ISO 3170:1988/A1:1998)  
ISO 3171, Petroleum liquids – Automatic pipeline sampling (ISO 3171:1988)  
ISO 3675, Crude petroleum and liquid petroleum products - Laboratory determination of density - Hydrometer 
method  
ISO 4259, Petroleum products - Determination and application of precision data in relation to methods of test  
ISO 5165, Petroleum products - Determination of the ignition quality of diesel fuels – Cetane engine method  
ISO 10370, Petroleum products - Determination of carbon residue (mi cro method)  
ISO 12185, Crude petroleum and petroleum products - Determination of density - Oscillating U  tube method  
EN ISO 12937, Petroleum products - Determination of water - Coulometric Karl Fisher titration method  
ISO 13759, Petroleum products – Dete rmination of alkyl nitrate in diesel fuels –Spectrometric method  
EN ISO 20846, Petroleum products – Determination of total sulfur content of liquid petroleum products – 
Ultraviolet fluorescence method  
ISO 20884, Petroleum products – Determination of low sulfur content of automotive fuels – Wave  length  
dispersive X -ray fluorescence spectrometry  
ISO/DIS 3679, Petroleum products - Determination of flash point - Rapid equilibrium closed cup method  
ISO 3987, Petroleum products - Lubricating oils and additive s - Determination of sulfated ash  
ASTM D 1160, Distillation of Petroleum Products at Reduced Pressure  
ASTM D93, Standard Test Methods for Flash Point by Pensky -Martens Closed Cup Tester  
3 Terms and definitions  
For the purposes of this document , the following terms and definitions apply. 
3.1 
additive  
compound added to the biodiesel fuel to improve either the performance of the biodiesel or its storage stability 
or both  
 3.2 
biodiesel  
fuel comprised of methyl esters of long chain fatty acids derived from vegetable oils  
3.3 
dyes  
chemicals added to fuels for visual identification  
 DKS 2227:2021  
© KEBS 2021  – All rights reserved  3 
 3.4 
markers  
substances added to fuels for traceability to protect them against theft or adulteration and also to distinguish 
between different fuels  
4 Requirements  
4.1  General  
4.1.1  The automotive biodiesel fuel shall contain, principally, mono -alkyl methyl esters o f long chain fatty 
acids derived from vegetable oil.  
4.1.2  Suitable fuel additives without known side effects may be used to help avoid deterioration of driveability 
and emissions control durability. Other technical means that exhibit an effect equivalent  to that of additives can 
also be used.  
4.1.3  The fuel may contain small quantities of colouring materials which are documented as harmless to give 
it a distinctive colour.  
4.1.4  The fuel shall be clear and free of visible water, sediment, suspended matt er and any other contaminant 
that is documented as likely to cause malfunctioning of equipment designed to use this type of fuel, either as a 
blend or in its 100 % concentration form.  
4.2  Physical and chemical properties  
The fuel shall comply with all t he requirements given in Table 1  when tested in accordance with the methods 
provided therein .  
NOTE:  In case of a need for identification of biodiesel, it is recommended that a method based on the characterization 
of fatty acid methyl esters by LG/GC, in a ccordance with EN 14331, be used.  
   
4 © KEBS  2021  – All rights reserved  
 Table 1 — Requirements for automotive biodiesel fuel  
1 2 3 
Property  Requirements  Test method  
FAME  contenta, % mass fraction , min   96,5b EN 14103  
Density at 20 oC , kg/m3  860 - 900 ISO 3675  
ISO 12185  
Kinematic viscosity at 40 oC, mm2/s  3,5 – 5,0 ISO 3104  
Flash point, oC, min .  101 ISO 3104  
ASTM D93  
Sulphur  content, mg/kg, max .  10,0 ISO 20846  
ISO 0884  
Carbon residue (on 10% distillation residue),  % mass fraction, max .  0,3 ISO 10370  
Cetane Number, min .  51,0 ISO 5165  
Sulphated  ash content, % mass fraction, max .  0,02 ISO 3987  
Water content, % mass fraction, max .  0,05 ISO 12937  
Total contamination, mg/kg, max .  24 EN 12662  
Copper strip corrosion (3 h at 50 oC), rating, max .  Class 1  ISO 2160  
Oxidation stability, at 110 oC, h, min .  6 EN 14112  
Acid value, mg KOH/g, max .   0,5 EN 14104  
Iodine value, g of iodine/100 g of FAME, max .  120 EN 14111  
Linolenic acid methyl ester, % mass fraction, max .  12 EN 14103  
Polyunsaturated (>= 4 double bonds) methyl ester , % , mass fraction, 
max.  1 - No test method  
Methanol content, % mass fraction, max .  0,2 EN 14110  
Monoglyceride content, % fraction max .  0,8 EN 14105  
Diglyceride content, % mass fraction, max .  0,2 EN 14105  
Triglyceride content , mass fraction, max .  0,2 EN 14105  
Free glycerol, % mass fraction, max .  0,02 EN 14105  
EN 14106  
Total glycerol, % mass fraction, max .  0,25 EN 14105  
Group I metals  (total of Na and K), mg/kg, max .  5,0 EN 14108  
EN 14109  
Group II metals (total of Ca and Mg)  5,0 prEN 14538I 
Phosphorus content, mg/kg, max  5 EM 14107  
Cold Filter Plugging Point (CFPP), max  6 EN 116  
 
  DKS 2227:2021  
© KEBS 2021  – All rights reserved  5 
 5  Packing  
Except when transported in bulk, the biodiesel shall be packed in sound, clean, dry drums not deleteriously 
affected by the biodiesel. The drums shall be so closed that leakage and contamination of the biodiesel is 
prevented during normal handling and tran sport.  
6  Marking  
The following information shall appear in prominent, legible and indelible marking on each drum or, in the case 
of biodiesel filled in bulk storage tanks or bulk carriers, in the storage and consignment documents of each bulk 
carrier:  
a) the manufacturer’s (or the supplier’s) name or the brand name of the product or both;  
b) a description of the product, i.e. “BIODIESEL FUEL – PURE”;  
c) batch identification; and  
d) the quantity of the contents.  
7 Sampling  
Samples shall be taken as described in KS ISO 3170 or KS ISO 3171.  
In view of the sensitivity of some of the test methods referred to in this Kenya Standard, particular attention shall 
be paid to compliance with any guidance on sampling containers, which is included in the test method standard.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
6 © KEBS  2021  – All rights reserved  
  
 
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 DKS 2227:2021    
 
© KEBS 2021 – All rights reserved