Estudo de aplicação de mucilagem de chia na supressão de poeira em vagões de minério de ferro e da utilização de óleos de chia na produção de biodiesel

Abstract

The joint production process consists of obtaining more than one product from the same raw material and in a single process. In the chia industry, the seed, mucilage, oil, and biomass can be commercialized. These products are inserted in the food industry, but they are few studied in terms of industrial applications, such as mining and biofuel production. In this thesis, the industrial uses of mucilage and oil are proposed as an incentive to jointly process chia. In the first part of this work, studies were carried out on the application of chia mucilage as a dust suppressor using a rail transport simulator for iron ore, which is the main modal route used to transport the ore extracted in Minas Gerais to the ports of Espírito Santo. Chia mucilage, at different concentrations, was evaluated as a dust-suppressing polymeric solution and compared with commercial products. The results showed that chia mucilage at a mass concentration of 2.0 % (seed/water) behaves as a dust suppressant for rail transport under low humidity conditions and at a concentration of 1.0 % (seed/water) withstands days with higher humidity. It was found that the use of water alone is not effective under the conditions studied and that chia mucilage is comparable to commercial products. In the second part, the influence of mucilage drying processes on effectiveness as a dust suppressor was investigated. Dust suppression of conventional oven-dried and spray-dried mucilage was compared. The results in the rail transport simulator showed that these drying methodologies did not interfere with the dust suppression capacity. The application of chia oil, outside the consumption patterns, in the production of biodiesel was also studied. Expired chia oils outside the standards of ANVISA IN 87/2021 Normative Instruction were used for transesterification. The procedure allowed to obtain biodiesels with kinematic viscosity, specific mass, flash point, acidity index and copper foil corrosion within the standards required by the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP). The water content results were above the established standards, demonstrating the need for adaptation in the drying process of the biodiesel produced from the oils studied. This study increases the number of raw materials available to produce this biofuel and may reduce dependence on other sources.