Síntese e caracterização de catalisador heterogêneo para produção de biodiesel

Abstract

The objective of this work was the production of biodiesel by means of heterogeneous catalyst synthesis, using niobium impregnated with sodium hydroxide. Biodiesel is a biofuel that has as main advantage not to release sulfur in its burning, and heterogeneous catalysis appears as an environmentally more viable alternative, since it promotes the economy of some resources that are wasted in the process of homogeneous catalysis, widely used today. Some solid materials are used in heterogeneous catalysis, among them is niobium oxide, which presents stability when exposed to air and is insoluble in water, properties that makes it a good catalyst. Due to its acidity, niobium oxide is generally used in acid transesterification or esterification reaction research. In this work the reaction used was that of transesterification in alkaline medium. According to the chromatograms obtained in the experiment and compared with some of the literature, the synthesized catalyst proved to be a viable alternative and could be reused in the biodiesel synthesis process.