(Iowa Central Community College: Fort Dodge, IA) -- Don Heck has heard a lot of talk about making Iowa the “renewable energy capital of the world,” and he thinks he’s found a way to help.

The laboratory he directs at Iowa Central Community College, in Fort Dodge, has become the first to earn accreditation as a BQ-9000 laboratory. That means his lab has become the national leader in testing biodiesel and biodiesel blends to ensure they meet fuel quality standards.

“Testing fuel may not sound glamorous, but it is fundamental to the future of the biodiesel and renewable fuels industry in terms of reliability and consumer confidence,” says Heck.

The nonprofit Iowa Central Fuel Testing Laboratory offers cost-effective, rapid testing for biodiesel producers nationwide. It also tests other fuels such as ethanol and petroleum. Organizers hope that the lab’s new biodiesel accreditation will help it earn the business of more customers, including the Iowa Department of Agriculture’s Weights and Measures Bureau. The bureau is charged with ensuring all types of fuel are high quality before they reach consumers’ tanks.

BQ-9000 is a voluntary quality assurance program overseen by the independent National Biodiesel Accreditation Commission. It is already viewed as the industry’s benchmark for biodiesel producers and marketers. The laboratory designation, however, is new.

Steve Howell, National Biodiesel Board technical director, said other labs will follow suit, which will help ensure a high-quality fuel supply for producers and consumers alike.

“Not every biodiesel plant has its own laboratory to test its fuel, so there is a need for qualified, credible laboratories to test fuel samples,” says Howell. “Becoming accredited is a rigorous process, and the Iowa Central Fuel Testing Laboratory deserves our congratulations for being the first.”

Among other things, earning the designation of a BQ-9000 Laboratory involved creating a detailed manual that regulates the process used in every step of the lab’s biodiesel testing. A third-party auditor inspected the facility before granting accreditation.

“People don’t necessarily associate a community college with state-of-the-art laboratories, but that’s exactly what we have, and this accreditation backs up our credibility,” says Heck.

The lab is housed in the college’s Biosciences and Health Sciences Building, a LEED Gold Certified building. Environmentally friendly biodiesel is a great fit, Heck says.

The Iowa Central Fuel Testing Laboratory began as an offshoot of the Biofuels Technology Program created at Iowa Central Community College in the fall of 2006. One of the cornerstone features of this program is the student teaching laboratory and its many state-of-the-art instruments used for performing biodiesel analyses according to ASTM methods.

The lab was approached in the fall of 2006 to assist in conducting the Two Million Mile Haul, a B20 biodiesel field trial, with Decker Trucking of Fort Dodge employing the lab’s instruments and students in the study. These efforts attracted the interest of several parties who collectively came up with the idea of creating an independent fuel testing laboratory on the campus of Iowa Central.

Initial funding from a state appropriation provided funds for the laboratory casework and an initial round of instrument purchases. Long-term funding has been provided through a Department of Energy grant that has allowed for additional instrument purchases and will allow for further expansion into ethanol and petroleum distillate testing.