Perspectivas e inovações na área do biodiesel

Abstract

Against with a scenario of continuous growth in energy demand, in the transport sector, biofuels stand out due to their renewable origin, less emission of pollutants and diversity of feedstocks for their production. Brazil occupies the 2nd place in the production of biofuels in the world and thanks to Renovabio, the National Biofuels Policy, has a great growth perspective. Biodiesel, a substitute for fossil diesel, is generally produced through the transesterification process, where the oil is of animal or vegetable origin reacts with an alcohol in the presence of a catalyst. According to the feedstock used in its production, biodiesel can be classified into four generations, the first generation being edible oils, the second being non-edible oils, the third being used oils and fats and algae and the fourth being is in the research phase, uses principles of synthetic biology. The choice of feedstock is the first step in the production process, influencing factors such as cost, composition and yield of biodiesel. The properties of biodiesel, such as density, viscosity, cetane number must comply with the specifications of standards, such as those of the ABNT (Brazilian Association of Technical Standards, ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) and CEN (European Committee for Normalization), to then be commercialized.