CARACTERIZAÇÃO DO ÓLEO DE COCO A SER UTILIZADO NA PRODUÇÃO DE BIODIESEL VIA ROTA ETÍLICA

Growing concern about the end of non-renewable fuel reserves, which is estimated to occur in five or six decades, as well as growing concern about the environment, causes new outlets to be sought to find sources and alternative produce energy in the country and in the world. Brazil, which despite having a considerable amount of oil and gas reserves, recently discovered pre-salt reserves, further boosting investments in the fossil fuel production sector, also has great potential for cane and oilseeds due to their vast territorial extension, and favorable hydrography, in addition to the fact that for many decades the country has its economic base turned to agriculture, being leader in techniques of planting of several species. In view of the agricultural potential of our country and the need to search for alternative energy sources, is that this work aims to characterize the coconut oil that will be used later in the production of biodiesel by ethanol, since coconut and sugarcane being consolidated crops in Brazil and the state of Sergipe, this fact alone justifies the choice of these raw materials in this work. Thus, initially coconut oil samples were collected from the region, the objective of which was to characterize and analyze its physicochemical properties, comparing with those of other regions, where it was verified with the results that the parameters studied are within the values ​​established by Portaria no. 255 of ANP - Agencia Nacional de Petroleo. From these results, the processes of biodiesel production by the ethylic route will be studied through the transesterification process, varying the composition of the reactants and the catalysts as well as the process conditions, aiming at innovation and technological development of the region.