CATALYST DEVELOPMENT FOR BIODIESEL AND ANTIOXIDANTS NATURAL WITH EVALUATION PROPERTIES OF BIODIESEL/ DIESEL FUEL MIXTURE
Biodiesel; Bimetallic Catalysts; Natural antioxidants; Lipid oxidation, Physicochemical properties
In Brazilian energy matrix, the use of diesel/biodiesel blends appears as a viable option for the problem of the use of fossil fuels. Biodiesel presents itself as an alternative to diesel for emitting a smaller amount of polluting gases. However, there are still some technological obstacles for biodiesel obtainment, such as the use of homogeneous catalysts, generally basic, as NaOH and KOH, which generate a difficult separation and purification residues. The increase of biodiesel content in the fuel blend tends to potentiate some negative aspects for the diesel commercialization, such as lipid oxidation processes, which causes by-products formation. In this work, it was evaluated the natural antioxidants activity in biodiesel and new heterogeneous catalysts, based on metals supported in silicas. Other biodiesel properties such as composition, cold filter plugging point (CFPP), flash point (FP), and kinematic viscosity have also been analyzed using standard methods in order to further characterize the biodiesel produced. The antioxidants obtained were characterized by FTIR and the new catalysts were characterized by techniques such as DRX, FRX, MEV and FTIR. The bimetallic catalyst (CAT1) showed a similar result to KOH, with a reaction time of 30 min, and a yield of 85% biodiesel produced, in addition to the support used recovery , for later reactions. With the catalyst CAT2, the biodiesel was obtained in a reaction time of 4:30 h and had a yield of 75%, but this one presented a greater possibility of reuse in new reactions. The antioxidant activity from natural products (passiflora edullis, Punica granatum, Syzygium aromaticum) Obtained in this work was evaluated through the Rancimat method, obtaining PI values close to those required by the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP) for biodiesel, the antioxidant obtained from Passiflora edullis, presented a PI of 5.23h And 3.68h for soybean and cotton biodiesel, respectively. These results point to the viability of these catalysts in the production of biodiesel, due to the possibility of reuse and to present similar yields to the commercial catalysts. These results points the viability of these catalysts in the biodiesel production, due to the possibility of reuse and to present similar yields to the commercial catalysts. The natural antioxidants obtained on this work presented a activity in biodiesel similar to the synthetics.