FORMULAÇÃO DE COMBUSTÍVEIS ALTERNATIVOS EM SISTEMAS MICROEMULSIONADOS EMPREGANDO ÓLEOS VEGETAIS E DERIVADOS

Abstract

The use of vegetal oils as fuels presents advantages with respect to oil derivatives, mainly for being a renewable energy source and for not generating toxic gases during the burning, consequently reducing the emission of noxious gases into the atmosphere. Some disadvantages, such as its high viscosity and low volatileness, had turned improper the use of this raw material in diesel engines. As to remedy such problems, alternatives like transesterification processes, pyrolysis and microemulsion of the vegetal oils are being performed. Micro-emulsions are isotropic systems formed by mixtures of organic and inorganic phases and, as fuels, they present advantages related with the use of renewable sources, the reduction of viscosity and soot, with consequent reduction of gas emissions. The aim of this work was to formulate and to develop fuels in microemulsioned systems with raw material (vegetal oils and derivatives) original from the State of the Maranhão. In the assessed microemulsions, it was shown that properties such as viscosity, specific mass, corrosivity, amongst others, vary in accordance with the microemulsion composition, in particular, lesser viscosities are obtained with bigger water contents. By using biomass produced in the State of the Maranhão, such as babaçu and soy oils, babaçu-nut soap and biodiesel produced from babaçu and soy, it was possible to obtain a micro-emulsion able to attain the potential to attend the requirements for its use as fuel. Preliminary results showed that all systems can attend the specifications for their use as combustibles, and that the microemulsion consisting of water/biodiesel from babaçu-nut ethyl/soup babaçu/ethyl alcohol at C/T=10 ratio, appeared as the best system, once it presented viscosity and corrosivity with respect to copper close to the acceptable limit for diesel, still not presenting sulphur traces, besides showing complete combustion, i.e., not producing residues after thermal degradation.