ALTERNATIVE PROCESS OF DEACIDIFICATION OF MACAUBA OIL (Acrocomia aculeata) AIMING THE BIODIESEL PRODUCTION

The availability of low-cost raw material is a key factor for the economic viability of biodiesel production. Together with the raw material, other factors that increase costs in the process of transformation of vegetable oil or animal fat by alkaline transesterification into biodiesel are associated with the purification steps of the raw materials and products. Macauba (Acrocomia aculeata) is an oleaginous palm whose current extraction procedures render it unsuitable for biodiesel production by conventional processes due to its high acidity. In this work, an alternative process is proposed, which is technically feasible and environmentally friendly, for the separation of free fatty acids of the Macauba pulp oil in order to adequate it for biodiesel production by transesterification via homogeneous alkaline catalysis. The process consists of two main steps: liquid-liquid extraction for the recovery of free fatty acids and neutralization of residual fatty acids through esterification. In the simulation, 50 kg.h-1 of Macauba oil with acidity of 12.9% are treated, achieving 40.8 kg.h-1 of a product with acidity of 0.5%. In the validation bench test, following the same steps of the simulation, the acidity achieved in the final product was 0.67%