Aplicação da metodologia de superfície de resposta na otimização do processo de purificação da glicerina bruta residual da produção de biodiesel

Abstract

The growing national biodiesel production, through transesterification processes, generates an expressive amount of glycerol that can be used in several sectors of the national industry as long as it has a compatible purity content. The objective of this work was to develop and optimize a crude glycerine purification route from biodiesel production. The residual glycerin was subjected to pre-purification processes using a tannin-based cationic polymer, known as Tanfloc, followed by purification with ionic, cationic and anionic exchange resins. The crude, pre-purified and purified glycerol samples were characterized by their glycerol content and chloride content. The optimization process of the pre-purification stage with the Tanfloc polymer was effective in the reduction of 28.38% chlorides and in the increase of the glycerol content in relation to the crude glycerin. The glycerol content of the samples increased after treatment with ion exchange resins, with a percentage of 95% to 87% reduction in chloride content compared to the glycerin.