Energetic assessment of soybean biodiesel obtainment in West Paran, Brasil

This work presents the result of a research that aimed to assess soybean-based biodiesel production in the West region of Parana State, showing that the growing usage of these fuels happens due to the need for alternatives to the use of fossil fuels, once biomass-based fuels have been an environmentally-friendly energetic alternative. The methodology consisted of determining the energetic consumption of biodiesel production. Energetic consumption was performed by considering the stages involved in soybean farming, oil extraction and production of pure biodiesel (B100); results were presented in megajoules (MJ). The energetic outputs obtained show that the energetic inputs in the farming stage totalized 2,411.53 MJ. Energetic outputs added up to 3,003.75 MJ and energy balance was 57,132.54 MJ. In the oil extraction stage, energetic inputs corresponded to a total of 16.80 MJ and energetic outputs to 17.29 MJ. Energetic balance presented a total of 5.14 MJ. In the soybean biodiesel production stage, energetic input was 59.06 MJ and energetic output, 39.69 MJ. Energetic balance corresponded to 33.26 MJ. The highest energetic consumption for soybean biodiesel production, contemplating all three stages, occurred in the farming stage, with 76% of the total energetic consumption, followed by energetic consumption in the production stage, with 21% of the total consumption. Keywords: Soybean production, energetic consumption, soybean biodiesel. African Journal of Biotechnology , Vol 13(29) 3008-3016