(43d) Experimental Determination of Equilibrium Liquid-Vapor of the Pseudo-Binary Mixture of Biodiesel and Ethanol

Currently, the debates regarding environmental problems occupy a featured place  in all parts of the world. Under this perspective, several sectors of modern society are worried and aware of the importance in preserving natural resources, especially regarding the impact of the use of fossil fuels, which are not renewable and present environmental problems. Biofuels are alternative to fossil fuels since its use promotes the reduction of environmental impacts. The most well known biofuels used today are biodiesel and bioethanol, the use of which is regulated in the  Brazilian territory. It is with these characteristics have been studied and proposed as one of the biodiesel alternative to fossil fuels, is renewable and biodegradable, with gaseous emissions free of sulfur compounds, toxic and carcinogenic substances and emits 90% less smoke compared to mineral diesel (Rocha et al., 2008). The quality of biofuels is related to detailed research under the several stages of production processes, mainly those related to the purification processes. In order to improve the performance of these processes, it is required the knowledge and determining the phase equilibrium involving the liquid-vapor equilibrium. Phase equilibrium data allows to establish the appropriate conditions of temperature and pressure of the separation processes related to the recovering of methanol or ethanol and biodiesel purification, performed by distillation, governed by the principle operation of the equilibrium between the phases, liquid and vapor. In this paper, we present experimental results of equilibrium liquid-vapor of the pseudo-binary mixture of biodiesel and ethanol, obtained by ebulliometry techniques.