EFFECTS OF CHEMICAL REAGENTS IN THE BIODIESEL INDUSTRY EFFLUENT: CONTRIBUTION IN THE ORGANIC LOAD AND ECOTOXICITY

Abstract

The technologies used for the biodiesel production, utilizing chemical reagents such as ethanol, methanol, sodium hydroxide among others during the purification of the biodiesel, is the usage of water in an amount of about 30%, as compared to the volume of the biodiesel in question. The potential effects of these said reagents in the industrial effluent, as well as the environment, are unknown in this particular study, however, this study is aimed in formulating a synthetic effluent of each chemical reactant (analyte), in order to evaluate the physico-chemical and its toxicity against organisms, such as the Daphnia magna and the Daphnia similis. In the process of quantifying the physico-chemical parameters, the following effects were also observed: organic contaminants such as ethanol, methanol, propanol and glycerol showed acid characters and the inorganic sodium hydroxide, showed basic characters in synthetic effluents. Furthermore, it was observed as well that the chemical oxygen demand (COD), was influenced by the presence of oxygen in the chemical composition of the analyte, and the propanol showed a higher experimental COD, duly searched among all the analytes in all the concentrations. Concerning toxicity, the sodium hydroxide and the propanol analytes showed a high toxic effect for both Daphnia similis and daphnia magna, in all predetermined concentrations.

Keywords: Biodiesel, chemical reagent, environmental legislation, effluent and ecotoxicity.