Biofuels in Transport Fleets
Introduction
biodiesel, biodiesel[1][2] (biofuel), or biodiesel,[3] is a liquid that is obtained from natural lipids such as vegetable oils or animal fats, with or without prior use,[4] through industrial processes of esterification and transesterification and that is applied in the preparation of total or partial substitutes for petrodiesel or gasoil obtained from petroleum. Biodiesel can be mixed with diesel fuel from petroleum refining in different quantities. Abbreviated notations are used according to the percentage by volume of biodiesel in the mixture: B100 in case of using only biodiesel, or other notations such as B5, B15, B30 or B50, where the numbering indicates the percentage by volume of biodiesel in the mixture.
Vegetable oil, whose properties for driving engines have been known since the invention of the diesel engine thanks to the work of Rudolf Diesel, was already intended for combustion in conventional or adapted diesel cycle engines. At the beginning of the century, in the context of the search for new renewable energy sources, its development was promoted for its use in automobiles as an alternative fuel to petroleum derivatives.
Biodiesel breaks down natural rubber, so it is necessary to replace it with synthetic elastomers if fuel mixtures with a high biodiesel content are used.
It has been proposed in recent times to call it agrodiesel since the prefix "bio-" is often mistakenly associated with something ecological and respectful of the environment. However, some brands of petroleum products already call agrodiesel "agricultural diesel" or "diesel B", used in agricultural machinery.
Historical background
The transesterification of vegetable oils was developed in 1853 by the scientist Patrick Duffy, many years before the first diesel engine operated. has declared “International Biodiesel Day”. Diesel presented its engine at the Paris World Exhibition of 1900. This engine[6] is an example of Diesel's vision, since it was powered by peanut oil – a biofuel, although not strictly biodiesel, since it was not transesterified. Diesel wanted the use of a fuel obtained from biomass to be the true future of its engine. In a 1912 speech, he says: "the use of vegetable oils for motor fuel may seem insignificant today, but such oils may become, in the course of time, important substitutes for modern oil and coal."