Vapor-liquid equilibrium data evaluation for systems of interest in the biodiesel production
Vapor-Liquid Equilibria, Soybean Oil, Ethanol, Biodiesel.
In order to mitigate the environmental impacts resulting from the burning of fossil fuels, many studies have been carried out to find alternative energy sources that are economically viable. Due to this, biodiesel started to receive great prominence in the global fuel market, since this, in addition to being renewable, also presents low toxicity. Among the different production routes, the most common is transesterification where a fat, usually of animal origin or a vegetable oil, reacts with a short-chain alcohol to produce fatty acid esters (biodiesel). As fat and oils consist of a mixture of triglycerides and these are formed by a glycerol molecule linked to three fatty acid molecules, the interest in studying the liquid vapor balance of the systems formed during the production of biodiesel has increased considerably, because in addition to playing a fundamental role in terms of the separation and purification steps of biodiesel, they can also be used in the design and simulation of equipment that promote contact between the phases. Thus, this work aims to study the liquid-vapor balance for the systems formed in the production of ethylic biodiesel using soybean oil as a raw material. For this, a bibliographic review of experimental data on phase equilibrium and modeling of thermodynamic properties will be carried out using the UNIQUAC molecular model and also the contribution model of UNIFAC groups. Thus, it is expected that the reparametrized thermodynamic modeling can compose the databases of the simulators used in the analysis of the extraction and separation processes involved in the production of biodiesel.