Monitoramento da reação de transesterificação através da integração de dados de múltiplos sensores

Abstract

Biodiesel is a synthetic fuel usually produced by the transesterification reaction. This study was undertaken to monitor the kinetics of the transesterification reaction between soybean oil and methanol catalyzed by potassium methoxide. A series of reactions was monitored with a laser spectrometer used to analyze the absorption and scattering of light in real-time. The objectives of this study aimed to determine when the reaction came in chemical equilibrium. This objective was achieved by observing an arbitrary time interval, experimentally obtained from the graph of electrical resistance versus time, allowing optimize reaction time, by using a monitoring system that combined the information received through multiple sensors. Determine if the optical phenomenon observed during the reaction could be described by Euclidean geometry and whether it was related with the internal conical diffraction. It was found that it is not related to the internal conical diffraction, however, depending on the scale applied to observe the optical phenomenon it can be described by the Euclidean geometry. The goal of developing analytical instrumentation was achieved by constructing a non-invasive laser spectrometer.