Important notes: Do NOT write outside the grey boxes.

Any text or images outside the boxes will be deleted. Do NOT alter the structure of this form. Simply enter your information into the boxes. The form will be automatically processed if you alter its structure your submission will not be processed correctly. Do not include keywords you can add them when you submit the abstract online. Title:

TECHNOLOGICAL ALTERNATIVES FOR BIODIESEL PRODUCTION IN COLOMBIA

Authors & affiliations: Lucia Moreno, Faculty of Sciences, Chemistry Department, UPTC, Colombia Oscar Medina, Faculty of Sciences, Chemistry Department, UPTC, Colombia

Abstract:

(Your abstract must use Normal style and must fit in this box. Your abstract should be no longer than 300 words. The box will expand over 2 pages as you add text/diagrams into it.)

In Colombia, like in almost all the countries where petroleum is the main resource of energetics, the rate of depletion of fossil fuel reserves, the serious effect of greenhouse gas emissions on global climate change and the increasing of petroleum byproducts consumption, imply new strategies to produce biofuels from renewable resources. Biodiesel offers advantageous alternatives over other petroleum-derived fuel substitutes, because it is environmentally friendly and is an excellent fuel for common diesel engines. Biodiesel consists of fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) and is usually obtained from plant oils. Nowadays, In Colombia, biodiesel production from oil crops is not sustainable because of the impact on food supply and the environment quality. Microbial oils, the newly postulated alternative to plant oils, have as their distinguishing characteristic, their yield and hence their biodiesel yield. Our recent researching activity has been focused in the characterization of microalgae as a feedstock for biodiesel and exploring alternatives for improving biodiesel production. Taking into account the particular and favorable tropical Colombian conditions, we have oriented our efforts to produce algal biomass on the scale needed for biodiesel production from native microalgae consortia, using the freely available sunlight, tubular bioreactors and deoiling competitive technologies, avoiding the traditional multiple solid-liquid separation steps, typical of the algal green crude production process. By using dimethyl ether as extractant, the green crude has been successfully extracted from high-moisture natural microalgae, combining drying, cell disruption and solvent extraction in one step. On the other hand, we are beginning to obtain biodiesel by acidcatalyzed direct transformation, without previous extraction of the lipids. Direct transformation, increases lipid extraction and demonstrates that structural lipids, can be transformed into FAMEs. Colombian microalgae -derived biodiesel using three different catalysts (BF3, H2SO4, and HCl), could be a promising alternative source for biodiesel production in our country.

Important notes: Do NOT write outside the grey boxes. Any text or images outside the boxes will be deleted. Do NOT alter the structure of this form. Simply enter your information into the boxes. The form will be automatically processed if you alter its structure your submission will not be processed correctly. Do not include keywords you can add them when you submit the abstract online.