ESTUDIO DEL EQUILIBRIO SÓLIDO-LÍQUIDO DE MEZCLAS BINARIAS FORMADAS POR MIRISTATO DE ETILO Y COMPUESTOS REPRESENTATIVOS DEL DIESEL DE PETRÓLEO

Abstract

Biodiesel is becoming a sustainable alternative to fuels derived from petroleum. It is basically composed by fatty acid alkyl esters obtained by reaction between fatty acids and alcohol in an alkaline medium. A promising source of fatty acids in Brazil is the coconut, which could make the process more economical, because it contains myristic acid at very high levels. Biodiesel is usually blended with conventional hydrocarbon-based diesel to avoid flow assurance problems. The reliable prediction of solid liquid equilibrium (SLE) would help to formulate mixtures with the desired cold properties but experimental data to check predictions are scarce. In this work, binary mixtures of ethyl myristate and various petroleum diesel components were analyzed by differential scanning calorimetry in order to obtain experimental data of SLE. Results show the immiscibility of solid phase in all cases and reveal the existence of congruent fusion points never observed before for this kind of systems.