Produção de biodiesel de óleo de fritura usado: Planejamento experimental e análise multivariada

Abstract

Biodiesel is derived from renewable sources and it significantly reduces atmospheric emissions. It can be obtained by several processes, such as alcoholysis. In this work, biodiesel was produced through alcoholysis of used frying oil from a catering business. An experimental factorial design was used and the reaction products were analyzed through gas chromatography (GC), horizontal attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (HATR/FT-IR) spectroscopy and exploratory analysis with principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA). Under the conditions analyzed, a high degree of conversion to methyl ester was found. As shown by HATR/FT-IR, the maximum conversion was obtained when the experimental conditions had the temperature ( 50 e 60°C), largest catalyst concentration (0,6 e 1,2%) and a 1:8 molar proportion of oil to methanol. It was possible to discriminate, through chemometrics analysis, four groups in the proposed experimental factorial design and determine the better condition for biodiesel production from used frying oil.