Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply - Embrapa

those biodiesel plants has been approved the country's production capacity
will be sufficient to meet the 2008 goals, but would have to be significantly
increased in order to meet the legal requirement of adding 5% biodiesel to
petrodiesel by 2013.
Production and technology
Biodiesel research has made considerable progress in the last 20 years.
In addition to testing different types of motors several pilot plants were built in
various cities. After a purely experimental phase biodiesel is finally being sold.
The technological processes developed enable the production of biodiesel
from new and residual vegetable oils, animal fats and fatty acids obtained
during the vegetable oil refining process.
Esterification is the name of the chemical reaction through which esters
(biodiesel) are obtained from alcohols and free fatty acids or their byproducts.
Transesterification consists of a chemical reaction of triglycerides (vegetable
oils or animal fats in which the fatty acids form esters with glycerol) with
alcohols (methanol or ethanol) in the presence of a catalyst (acid, base or
enzyme) that results in the substitution of the ester group in the glycerol with
an ethanol or methanol group (Figure 11). The glycerin obtained after
purification is a valuable byproduct of the reaction and its sale increases the
total economic yield of the process. An alternative to transesterification is
catalytic or thermal cracking, whereby the molecules are broken down at very
high temperatures to form a mixture of chemicals whose properties are very
similar to those of petrodiesel.
A tropical country of continental dimension, Brazil can produce vegetable
oils from a variety of raw materials. Consequently, it can also structure its
biodiesel production and use program in several ways. The challenge is to
take advantage of the potential of the different regions of the country and derive
the greatest possible social benefit from biodiesel production by applying
advanced technology not only to traditional crops, such as soybean, peanuts,
sunflower, castor beans, and African palm fruits, but also to new cultures,
such as physic nut (Jatropha curcas), radish (Raphanus sativus L. var.
oleiferus Metzg), pequi or Souari nut (Caryocar brasiliense), buriti or aguaje
palm (Mauritia flexuosa L.), macaúba or grugru palm (Acronomia aculeate)
and a large variety of oleaginous plants still to be explored.
Although some native plants have shown good results in the laboratory
their production is purely extractivist, and there are no commercial plantations
82