Avaliação do efeito da agitação e mistura no processo de produção do biodiesel de girassol, via transesterificação etílica

Abstract

The petroleum fuels are nonrenewable, are finites resources and its combustion produces many pollutants into the atmosphere. So, researches aiming alternative sources of energy have been increased. Vegetable oils seem to be a great alternative to produce biodiesel - a renewable fuel, non-toxic and releases fewer pollutants. The sunflower is a great oilseed for biodiesel production, because it can be planted in northeastern of Brazil during the rainy season. Biodiesel can be obtained by transesterification: reaction between vegetable and/or animal fat with shot chain alcohol in presence of catalyst. The aim of this work is to study the effect of the process variable in the production of biodiesel – agitation speed - and even equipment configuration, as characteristic impeller and presence or absence of chicanery in the reactor. For this, full factorial design 2 ³ was performed a resulting in eight experiments. The biodiesel was produced by the transesterification reaction from refined sunflower oil and anhydrous ethanol, and sodium hydroxide P.A. as catalyst. The following operating conditions were used: temperature of the thermostatic bath maintained at 70 °C; weight of catalyst of 1.5% by weight of oil; ratio between number of moles of oil ans ethanol of 1:10; and reaction time of 30 min. Prior to reaction, was performed to characterize the oil, as well as the characterization of biodiesel obtained after the reaction. It was observed that the presence of baffle contributed to obtain lower yields throughout the reaction. When used impeller 2 (turbine impeller with dimensions greater than those reported in the literature), higher yields were obtained at the beginning of the reaction. The stirring speed of 35o rpm contributed to higher yields were obtained at the beginning of the reaction.