DESENVOLVIMENTO DE UM PROCESSO CONTÍNUO PARA PRODUÇÃO DE BIODIESEL A BAIXAS TEMPERATURAS. / DEVELOPMENT OF A CONTINUOUS PROCESS FOR PRODUCING BIODIESEL AT LOW TEMPERATURES.

AUTOR(ES)
FONTE

IBICT - Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

25/03/2011

RESUMO

Biodiesel has emerged worldwide as a promising alternative to oil-derived mineral fuels. It is biodegradable, renewable, obey to the carbon cycle and can be defined as fatty acid monoalquyl esters derived from renewable sources, such as vegetable oils and animal fats. It can be produced from a transesterification reaction, in which there is the transformation of triglycerides into smaller molecules of fatty acid esters, and it has characteristics very similar to fossil diesel fuel, becoming a sustainable alternative to the substitution of this fuel. The conventional route for biodiesel production, the methyl transesterification with alkali homogeneous catalyst, is carried out in simple equipment, under batch operation, and it needs neither lots of energy demand nor special cares in the operation and reaction control. The energetic spend is limited to heating the reactor up and the agitation system. Several problems regarding to product purification, and also to the process costs, point out the need of investigating new routes, applying mainly cleaner technologies. Many continuous processes of biodiesel production have been studied, but involving supercritical fluids and PFR reactors, where the main advantage is in the reactor, in which high pressure and temperature can be easily controlled. But, these processes have higher costs. Focusing to minimize the problems in the conventional process of biodiesel production and also improve the continuous processes already existing, this work deal with the development of a reactor that works under a continuous flow and mild conditions of pressure and temperature, using hydroxide chlorine mixed to the oil to generate biodiesel and glycerin. Specifically, the influence of the molar ratio alcohol/oil over the ester conversion and temperature was studied. The oil and alcohol were pumped continuously inside the reactor at molar ratio of 1:4, 1:8, and 1:12 with temperature range of 30-80 C. Once the temperature was stable, the transesterification reaction was carried out for one-hour period. Samples were collected and analyzed in gaseous chromatography. The results indicate the best average conversion (59%) for ratio of 1:8 and temperature of 60 C. The continuous reactor was compared to a batch one. At 60C, that comparison showed that conversion on continuous system reached 80% of batch one, in a tenminutes reaction.

ASSUNTO(S)

biodiesel reação de transesterificação reator contínuo óleo de soja engenharia quimica biodiesel transesterificacion reaction contínuous reactor ssoybean oil

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