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While BD is produced in reasonably differently scaled plants from vegetable oils of varying origin and quality, it was essential to install a standardization of fuel quality for assurance of engine performance exclusive of any difficulties. Austria was the first country in the world to define and approve the standards for rapeseed oil methyl esters as diesel fuel. As standardization is a prerequisite for successful market introduction and penetration of BD, standards or guidelines for the quality of BD have also been defined in other countries like Germany, Italy, France, the Czech Republic, and in the United States.

Quality standards are prerequisites for the commercial use of any fuel product. They serve as guidelines for the production process, guarantee customers that they are buying high quality fuels, and provide authorities with approved tools for the assessment of safety risks and environmental pollution [163]. Moreover, engine and automobile manufacturers rely on fuel standards for releasing warranties for their vehicles to be operated on BD.

In 1997, the European Committee for Standardization was mandated to develop a uniform standard for FAME fuels and come up with respective measurement procedures. The resulting standard EN 14214, which has come into picture in 2004, is valid for all member states of the European Union and thus replaces the respective national specifications. Apart from Australia and the United States of America, which have already drawn up BD quality norms, a number of countries worldwide (e.g. Brazil, Canada, Japan) are currently working on their introduction, having released drafts or preliminary specifications. Then, ASTM D 6751 and EN 14214 conditions as well as their analysis methods for BD are illustrated in Table 1.3.

The constraints that are utilized to describe the quality of BD can be divided in two groups [164]. One of them is also used for mineral diesel, and the second describes the composition and purity of fatty esters. The former includes, for example, density, viscosity, flash point, sulfur percentage, Conradson carbon residue, sulfate ash percentage, cetane number, and acid number. The latter comprises, for example, methanol, free glycerol, total glycerol, phosphorus contents, water and esters content, and other properties described in Table 1.3. Thus, ASTM D 6751 and EN 14214 specifications methods for BD are illustrated in Table 1.3.