Estudo das propriedades físico-químicas do biodiesel e suas influências na deterioração dos elastômeros aplicados no sistema de injeção dos motores diesel

The biodiesel use has become important due to its renewable character and to reduce environmental impacts during the fuel burning. Theses benefit will be valid if the fuel shows good performance, chemistry stability and compatibility with engines. Biodiesel is a good fuel to diesel engines due to its lubricity. Then, the aimed of this study was to verify the physicalchemistry properties of biodiesel and their correlations with possible elastomers damage after biodiesel be used as fuel in an injection system. The methodology was divided in three steps: biodiesels synthesis by transesterification of three vegetable oil (soybean, palm and sunflower) and their physical-chemistry characterization (viscosity, oxidative stability, flash point, acidity, humidity and density); pressurized test of compatibility between elastomers (NBR and VITON) and biodiesel, and the last one, analyze of biodiesels lubricity by tribological test ball-plan( HFRR). Also, the effect of mixture of biodiesel and diesel in different concentrations was evaluated. The results showed that VITON showed better compatibility with all biodiesel blends in relation to NBR, however when VITON had contact with sunflower biodiesel and its blends the swelling degree suffer higher influences due to biodiesel humidity. For others biodiesels and theirs blends, this elastomer kept its mechanical properties constant. The better tribological performance was observed for blends with high biodiesel concentration, lower friction coefficient was obtained when palm biodiesel was used. The main mechanisms observed during the HFRR tests were abrasive and oxidative wear