Development & Aid, Environment, Tierramerica

Brazil on the Verge of “Clean” Petrochemical

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 17 2008 (IPS) - A byproduct of biodiesel can be used in industries like plastics, cosmetics, medicines, pesticides, energy and manufacturing.

Refining of fuel made from oleaginous crops in Brazil is gaining a critical mass of byproducts that could give rise to a petrochemical industry without fossil fuels.

Glycerin, a byproduct of biodiesel, currently is an environmental and economic problem for the pioneering companies in the production of plant-based fuel in Brazil and other parts of the world. It can't be dumped, because it would harm the environment, and its storage racks up additional costs.

But what has been a problem is now driving the search to develop new industrial uses of this multi-purpose raw material. Petrochemistry is its principal destination.

“Green propane” already exists — the raw material of many plastic products — and its patent belongs to a partnership between the governmental enterprise Nova Petroquimica and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), which is opening the way for replacing the petroleum derivatives used in the plastics industry.

“We have glycerin available in sufficient quantities” to develop this “sustainable path”, Pedro Bóscolo, technology manager of the company, told Tierramérica.

Brazil adopted an obligatory mixture of two percent biodiesel in vehicles that run on diesel fuel, B2. This produces a byproduct of 105,000 tons of glycerin per year, according to Bóscolo.

That will be multiplied by 2.5 in 2013, when the country's standard will be B5, with a five percent biodiesel mix, which while allow large-scale industrialization that is also favored by lower price of the raw material.

Brazil consumes 30,000 to 40,000 tons annually of glycerol, the technical name for pure glycerin, which is also a byproduct of the soap industry. It is used in the production of cosmetics, foods, dyes and pharmaceuticals.

For now, glycerin — nearly 10 percent of the biodiesel produced — is “an environmental liability” because in rivers it causes the proliferation of plants and bacteria that use up oxygen, killing fish, Claudio Mota, professor at the UFRJ Chemistry Institute, which coordinates green propane research, told Tierramérica.

Burning it is also harmful because it emits acrolein, a carcinogen, and the direct use as fuel could damage equipment, given that the glycerin comes out of the process with impurities, said the researcher. The biodiesel companies are storing it in hopes that a solution can be found, and there have already been reports of glycerin spills into rivers.

This situation pushed UFRJ and Nova Petroquimica to seek ways to make use of the product. Propane was chosen because it is the raw material for many industries in this country, produced from a waste product “and which does not require the cultivation of additional land in competition with food,” said Bóscolo.

With the product patented, its current phase is to develop a pilot plant at UFRJ, followed by a slightly larger plant at Nova Petroquimica, before launching large-scale production in 2013.

There is no patent for green propane in Europe, which has long produced more biodiesel than Brazil, and as such has much more glycerin available.

Glycerin had a limited market because it was seen has a costly product, Marcelo Parente, director of the Brazilian Bio-Energy Enterprise (EBB), told Tierramérica. But the byproducts of biodiesel change that scenario.

However, industrialization requires a complex purification process, to which the EBB has dedicated itself, having already obtained “prepurified” glycerin that is of great interest to industry because it reduces costs.

“It's a step towards bi-distillation” for sectors like petrochemistry, said Parente, whose father, Expedito Parente, invented biodiesel 30 years ago and developed biokerosene, a jet fuel made from vegetable oils.

The uses for glycerin continue to multiply. In pesticides it improves efficiency and sprayability, improving adherence to leaf surface, Parente said as an example.

A vehicle assembly company wants to use it in the systems to prevent engines from overheating, substituting it for a petroleum derivative.

With oil at more than 100 dollars a barrel (159 liters), renewable replacements for fossil fuel products are becoming more competitive, said Mota, although fossil fuels will maintain their dominant role for decades to come.

But now it can even be justified to exploit glycerin's energy potential. One of its oxygenated derivatives can improve the octane level of gasoline with a mix of one to five percent, and reduce emissions of the toxic carbon monoxide, the researcher said.

So many products in development are a sign that the errors Brazil made since 1970, when it adopted sugarcane ethanol as a gasoline substitute, won't be repeated.

The byproducts, which Mota prefers to call “co-products”, could be important for consolidating biodiesel and some oleaginous crops as their principal sources.

At the moment, soybeans predominate in Brazil, despite the low oil output of that crop. Its advantage is the broad production and marketing infrastructure already in place, as well as the great importance of soy bran, which is used as cattle feed.

The obstacles for castor-oil plant are its toxic residues and the excessive viscosity of its oil, said Mota. Furthermore, there is cultural resistance to planting it in some areas of the Northeast, where the government is trying to promote this crop among small farmers, said Parente.

The babaçu, a palm plant abundant in the Northeast and in the eastern Amazon, has the virtue that all of its parts are utilized by the local population. The socioeconomic effects of it being used for biodiesel would also be great, as more than 400,000 poor people make their living by making crafts from its coconuts.