Oxidation Stability: The Bottleneck for the Development of a Fully Renewable Biofuel from Wine Industry Waste

[Image: see text] Wine industry generates a large amount of biowaste, such as grape marc and wine lees, which is considered in the Directive (EU) 2018/2001 as an adequate feedstock to produce advanced biofuels. Grapeseed oil fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEEs) can be obtained from oil extracted from grape marc and bioethanol distilled from wine lees or wine surplus. Although FAEE still has no specific standard, grapeseed oil FAEE would fulfill all of the properties set by the standard EN 14214, except oxidation stability. This work analyzes the effect of natural antioxidants on the oxidation stability of grapeseed oil FAEE, using grapeseed oil fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) as a reference for comparison. On the one hand, the biofuel, produced with conventional transesterification, was mixed with FAME and FAEE produced via in situ transesterification. On the other hand, antioxidants extracted from grapeseed or defatted grapeseed flour were added to the biofuel. The results show that (1) FAEE has worse oxidation stability than FAME, (2) in situ transesterification improves the oxidation stability, and (3) addition of natural antioxidants is hindered by their low solubility in alkyl esters. Finally, the concentration of antioxidants, measured by UV–vis spectroscopy, showed a correlation between the absorbance at 285 nm (characteristic of phenolic compounds) and the induction time (IT) of the samples.