The increase of environmental pressures and efforts to build a sustainable world encouraged the emergence of international policies for the use of biodiesel, which contributed to the consolidation of this fuel as an important energy source. The use of biodiesel has a number of benefits over fossil fuels such as: more complete burning, which reduces the emission of polluting gases, greater safety in handling and storage, renewable character and biodegradability. Although biodiesel and petroleum are in the same market niche, with different characteristics and intentions, both fuels can share and dilute the energy matrix. The increased participation of biodiesel in the Brazilian energy matrix has resulted in the growing production of its co-product: glycerin. The high supply, along with the low cost of glycerin has driven the development of several products from this raw material. The search for new drilling fluids that are increasingly suited to environmental and cost-benefit constraints foster a range of new additives research. In this context, the application of glycerin in drilling fluids presents as a promising alternative. Biodiesel is produced from transesterification reactions of vegetable oils with methanol (or ethanol). In the reaction, biodiesel, which consists of methyl esters (or ethyl esters) of fatty acids, is formed together with glycerin (glycerol). However, products of the incomplete reaction, such as mono and diglycerides, can be formed, even if on a small scale, as part of the glycerin phase. Thus, the objective of this work is to use the glycerin from the production of biodiesel from frying soybean oil as a lubricant in aqueous based drilling fluids. Two samples of methyl biodiesel were produced, one from frying oil and the other from commercial soybean oil. At the end of the reaction, there was separation of phases, being the upper constituted of biodiesel and the inferior one of glycerin. Various fluids containing frying oil glycerin, commercial soybean oil glycerin and a commercial lubricant (DP400) were formulated. The obtained fluids were evaluated through rheology, weight, hot-rolling, filtration and lubricity performance tests. It has been verified that the glycerin from biodiesel production has considerable lubricating activity, representing a significantly feasible alternative, low-cost and environmentally friendly additive alternative for aqueous-based drilling fluids. Generally, the frying glycerin obtained results comparable to those obtained with the available commercial lubricant. It can be concluded that the use of frying glycerin as an additive for drilling fluids presents significant advantages, since it is a co-product of the production of biodiesel, which in turn is produced from a waste, in this case frying oil. In this way, the importance of integration among different productive sectors and government policies for practices and development of sustainable technologies is highlighted.
Keywords: biodiesel, glycerin, drilling fluids
5d Design for sustainability (Eco-Design, C2C, product service systems)
