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A fermented solid containing lipases was produced by solid-state fermentation of Rhizopus microsporus on sugarcane bagasse enriched with urea, soybean oil, and a mineral solution. The dry fermented solid produced using R. microsporus (RMFS) was used to catalyze the synthesis of alkyl-esters by esterification in a solvent-free system containing ethanol and oleic acid (as a model system) or a mixture of fatty acids obtained from the physical hydrolysis of soybean soapstock acid oil (FA-SSAO) in subcritical water. The conversions were 93.5 and 84.1%, for oleic acid and FA-SSAO, respectively, at 48 h and 40 °C, at a molar ratio (MR) of ethanol to fatty acid of 5:1. A further increase in the MR to 10:1 improved the production of ethylic-esters, giving conversions at 48 h of 98 and 86% for oleic acid and FA-SSAO, respectively. The results obtained in this work foster further studies on scaling-up of an environmentally friendly process to produce biofuels.

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The aim of this study is to investigate the viability of implementing bio-oil co-processing in an oil refinery.

We grew Rhizopus microsporus CPQBA 312-07 DRM in solid-state fermentation on a 1:1 mixture, by mass, of sugarcane bagasse and sunflower seed meal, to produce a fermented solid containing lipases (tricaprylin-hydrolyzing activity of 91 U g −1 ) and then used this fermented solid to catalyze the ethanolysis of corn oil. A 2 3 factorial design was used to optimize the reaction using n-heptane as the solvent. The best conversion was 91% at 48 h, obtained at 44 °C, with a molar ratio of ethanol/oil of 3:1 and the addition of 1.32 g of fermented solids/15 mL of reaction medium. Using these optimized conditions, we studied the effect of increasing the concentration of the reactants in the medium and even the use of a solvent-free system. In these systems, conversions were quite poor when the ethanol was added in a single aliquot at the start of the reaction. However, when the ethanol was added stepwise, with three equal aliquots added at 0, 24, and 48 h, promising conversions were obtained, including an ester yield of 51% at 72 h in the solvent-free medium. An improved fermented solid (tricaprylin-hydrolyzing activity of 183 U g −1 ) was then used to improve the production of ethylic esters in solvent-free medium, with an ester yield of 68% being obtained at 72 h. These results are promising and justify further optimization studies.

THERMO-CATALYTIC CRACKING OF THE MIXTURE OF USED FRYING OIL-TEXTILE STAMPING SLUDGE FOR THE PRODUCTION OF OIL WITH LOW ACIDITY INDEX. In this work, cracking experiments were performed to carry out the thermal conversion of the mixture of used frying oil and textile stamping sludge in continuous reactor. The textile stamping sludge was used to catalyze the reaction of thermal cracking. The physical and chemical properties of the oil produced were analyzed. Among the results of this analysis the level of acidity in the range of 12 mg KOH/g stands out. Low levels of acidity as this particular mean better quality oil. In this regard it is important that further researches on processes of conversion of residual oil occur.

The use of biofuels is increasingly important in order to mitigate the consumption of petroleum and increase the energy use of renewable sources. The estimative is that in 2040 the demand for oil will intensificate by 26% and part of it will have to be supplied by renewable energy. Biofuels offer a reliable alternative and among the process associated to biofuels production, thermal cracking results on a liquid product (bio-oil) with similar characteristics to the fossil fuels, particularly when performed with triglyceride sources (TG). In this sense, the main goal of this work is to propose an alternative sequence of chemical processes aiming to boost an oil refinery chain into a green refinery by producing, co-processing and improving bio-oil characteristics obtained from triglyceride source. Some bio-oil characteristics like density, acidity (AI), iodine index (II), oxygen content (OC), carbon number distribution and chemical compositions are presented. The properties of bio-oil obtained from the thermal cracking of triglycerides might be compared to petroleum and its derivate. Although the characteristics are similar between them, the bio-oil requires upgrading to reduce its high acid index, until achieve levels acceptable for its processing at a refinery. The content of olefins and oxygen might be reduced through hydrotreatment process. The hydrotreatment can promote the saturation of the double bonds and remove the oxygen atoms. The hydrotreatment unit is present in most of the refineries and further investigations are required to evaluate the hydrogen consumption. The proposal of this work is divided in four steps: the first is to produce bio-oil through triglyceride’s thermal cracking in a continuous and steady state regime; the second process is to promote the esterification of bio-oil to reduce its acid index; the third stage is co-processing bio-oil in a distillation unit being fractionated into desired fractions; the fourth step involves hydrotreatment to reduce both iodine index and oxygen content. Thus, the co-processing of bio-oil appears to be a promising approach to increasing the biofuels content in an oil refinery, to reduce sulfur and to maintain the quality parameters of commercial fuels.