A biodiesel more efficiently and in harmony with the environment

Biofuels are all those liquid fuels made from agricultural products. A way to more specific, biodiesel, is a group that is the oil obtained from oilseeds are used as substitutes for diesel or who can participate in mixtures with this from 5 up to 100%. Currently the technologies of production of biodiesel are based on the use of common varieties of conventional as sunflower and rapeseed species.

The project, led by the researcher Serafín Bernal Marquez, proposes the preparation, characterization and testing of a series of monolithic catalysts of alumina/aluminum designed for application in the process of transformation of vegetable oils in high-quality automotive fuel, type biodiesel.

The main objective of this study is the development of materials that allow the replacement of the technology in use, based on homogeneous, strongly basic catalysts by another in which heterogeneous Catalysis would be used. The advantages of this technological change are important. As ensures Serafín Bernal, "would reduce the costs of production, especially the inherent to the separation of reactants and catalyst." Environmental and problems of corrosion of the facilities deriving from the management of large volumes of strongly basic solutions required in the homogeneous process would be eliminated. "Also, could be reduced significantly the size of the current industrial plants". Arises in the search for greater efficiency and cost savings, go a step further with regard to the investigations under way, i.e., the use of catalysts for monolithic type instead of polycrystalline materials in powder.

The project involves a total of eight researchers belonging to three different groups of the area of physics, chemistry and mathematics, with purely complementary scientific formations and instrumental equipment, as well as a wide experience of collaboration.