| Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) was demonstrated to be a family of biopolyester with good biodegradability. The structure of hydroxyalkanoate methyl ester was similar to biodiesel. In this study, 3-Hydroxybutyrate methyl ester (HBME) was prepared from hydrolysis of bacterial poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) using methanol as an esterification agent in the presence of sulfuric acid. nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer (NMR) and Gas chromatography (GC) were used to have qualitative and quantitative analysis of the produced HBME. It was found that purity of HBME was 96.4%. Physicochemical and fuel related properties of HBME were studied for the possibility of using HBME as a biofuel or fuel additive according to the standard of ASTM. When HBME was blended with 97# gasoline in volume ratios of 5%, 8.5%, 10%, 15% and 20%, respectively, it was found that HBME had similar or better properties as a fuel additive compared with ethanol in terms of oxygen content, dynamic viscosity, flash point, boiling point, freezing point and distillation ranges. The blending of HBME and gasoline showed only little difference compared with the 97# gasoline in terms of octane number (RON) and heat of combustion, especially for the HBME 8.5% and 10% blends, which demonstrated an over 93% combustion heat of gasoline with less than 5% reduction in RON. HBME can be regarded as a fuel additive for developing into biofuel.
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