FAME biodiesel in marine fuel

Fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) is biodiesel produced by transesterifying vegetable oil or animal fat with methanol, and it is the most widely available drop-in blending component for marine distillate. ISO 8217:2024 handles it through a separate set of bio-distillate grades, DFA, DFZ and DFB, and the 2024 edition removed the ceiling that previously capped their FAME content, allowing blends up to 100 percent.

The full article will set out what a bio-distillate grade requires that a petroleum distillate grade does not: a minimum cetane number rather than a calculated cetane index, oxidation stability expressed as an induction period rather than as insolubles, and reporting of the net heat of combustion, all three added by the 2024 edition. The FAME itself must comply with EN 14214, though the marine context disapplies that standard own sulphur and cold flow provisions.

The article will then cover the operational consequences that decide whether a ship can take a blend: elastomer compatibility and seal attack, raised microbial growth risk at the water interface, oxidation on long storage, cold flow degradation as blend ratio rises, and the tank cleanliness a first bio-blend delivery demands. It links to marine gas oil , biofuels in shipping and ISO 8217:2024 .