REDUCTION OF THE CARBON FOOTPRINT OF FUELS AND PETROCHEMICALS STARTING FROM VEGETABLE OILS

In this work developments and innovative studies are proposed for the current biodiesel technology in order to make the whole productive process more efficient. In particular, three main aspects were deeply investigated, the oil deacidification, as a pre-step to the oil transesterification, working on the optimization of the operative parameters and developing a suitable kinetic model able to predict, in a wide range of concentrations and temperatures, the acid conversion and the eventual double phase system formation. Moreover, the extraction of carotenes from crude palm oil was investigated, focusing on finding the operative parameters that permitted its complete preservation. Experimental results showed that at the optimized condition these molecules were adsorbed on the catalyst, giving encouraging information regarding their extraction from crude oils. Secondly, the transesterification reaction was studied in a novel way, trying to overcome the mass limitation due to the low methanol solubility in oil using a suitable co-solvent and CaO as catalyst. Good results were obtained when THF was used, the biodiesel yield was comparable to the homogeneous catalyzed process. Finally, a possible improvement of biodiesel to valuable chemical was studied. In particular the synthesis of epoxidized biodiesel was firstly optimized and then performed on biodiesel and distilled biodiesel, obtaining with this latter substrate a product with an epoxide content comparable to a commercial product, giving positive suggestion for its application as bioplasticizer.