Upgrade of Biofuels Obtained from Waste Fish Oil Pyrolysis by Reactive Distillation

• Autor(a) principal: Wisniewski Jr,Alberto
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Wosniak,Lorena, Scharf,Dilamara R., Wiggers,Vinicyus R., Meier,Henry F., Simionatto,Edesio L.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Journal of the Brazilian Chemical Society (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0103-50532015000200224
• topic: bio-oil; waste fish oil; pyrolysis; biofuels; reactive distillation; acidity index; bio-oil upgrade

Bio-oil is classified as second-generation biofuel and it is produced mainly through the pyrolysis of a waste lignocellulosic biomass base. The application of this product is still very limited, due to some of its chemical characteristics. This paper presents a proposal for the reduction of the acidity of bio-oil obtained from waste fish oil, previously produced and characterized as described in the literature, applying the reactive distillation process. This process is primarily based on the conversion of carboxylic acids into their corresponding esters by adding a widely available alcohol and a simple and cheap catalyst in the process for the fractional distillation of crude bio-oil to obtain light and heavy bio-oil, that is, fractions which are equivalent to the fossil fuels gasoline and diesel, respectively. The alcohols tested were methanol and ethanol and the catalysts were H2SO4, H3PO4, NaOH and Na2CO3, in proportions of 10 and 0.5 wt.%, respectively. The light bio-oil was obtained within a temperature range of 42 to 198 ºC with yields of 27.0 to 43.1% and the heavy bio-oil was recovered at 93 to 230 ºC with yields of 42.6 to 49.2%. The greatest acidity reduction was observed employing methanol+H2SO4 (95% and 43% for light and heavy bio-oils, respectively). The fractions produced were characterized by gas cromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and gas chromatography with flame ionization detector (GC-FID), applying the compound classification process PIONA (Paraffins, Iso-paraffins, Olefins, Naphtenes and Aromatics), revealing a homologous series of 1-alkenes and n-alkanes along with some aromatic compounds. The 1H and 13C NMR analysis showed that the process had no significant influence in relation to the carbons and hydrogens associated with the methyl, methylene, methyne and olefinic groups.