Argilas modificadas para uso como catalisadores heterogêneos em reações de transesterificação: efeito da composição química das argilas

Abstract

The demand for renewable energy sources that are environmentally friendly is increasing every year, especially for biodiesel, a biofuel for use in internal combustion engines biodegradable and nontoxic. In turn, biodiesel is commercially produced by transesterification process using homogeneous catalysts such as NaOH or KOH, which possess good yields despite purification steps of biodiesel quite costly, and the raw material used has a high cost. The replacement of homogeneous catalysts by heterogeneous transesterification reactions is very promising because this method has some advantages such as easy separation of the biodiesel formed in the reaction and the catalyst and the possibility of reuse of the catalyst. This study aimed to produce biodiesel using modified clays as heterogeneous catalyst. Clays are abundant natural raw materials and therefore have a low cost, and enable manipulation of their properties. Thus, natural clays have been chemically modified by treatment with KF. After treatment the catalysts were characterized structurally by the techniques of XRF, XRD, IR, SEM and BET then applied to transesterification reactions. Tests using Hammett indicators were applied on fresh catalysts and clay, where the results confirmed a greater number of basic sites for the catalysts compared to untreated clay with KF. To achieve the goal of producing biodiesel was performed 23 factorial design for three catalysts. Thus the best yield obtained was 89% using the catalyst KF-Clay 1 in molar ratio 1:9 reaction conditions, amount of catalyst of 25% over the mass of the oil temperature of 80 ° C and 1 hour of reaction. Test was conducted with catalyst reuse Clay KF-1 that showed a gradual loss of catalytic activity and leaching tests showed that among the three catalysts used at work, Clay KF-1 shows greater stability.