Magnetic Biofoams Based on Polyurethane Applied in Oil Spill Cleanup Processes - Natural Polymers, Biopolymers, Biomaterials, and Their Composites, Blends, and IPNs - page 254

Therefore, seeking to overcome the humanity addiction on crude oil, energy from
alternative resources is being researched by scientific community around the world.
Among them, the biodiesel production is very promising and it is encouraged by the
Brazilian Government. The Brazil possesses many sources to produce biodiesel, such
as those shown in Figure 2. Nowadays, all diesel from petroleum produced in Brazil
receive 4% of biodiesel, and the resulting mixing is named B4. Furthermore, there is
the prediction, that diesel will receive 5% of biodiesel (B5) in 2013.
Figure 2. Several Brazilian's resources to the biodiesel production (Flexor, 2010).
However, the biodiesel production yields large amounts of glycerin as byproduct,
as one can see in Figure 3. Therefore, innovative uses for this new glycerin source
must be researched, avoiding the collapse of the animal glycerin chain. Among them,
the production of resins is interesting due to the likeness between these polymers and
the petroleum, promoting these resins as potential spill cleanup agents. Therefore,
the polymers can be engineered to produce chemical and physical properties which
make them useful tools to the environment recovering process. Among these materi-
als there are the ones from petrochemical sources, such as poly(divinylbenzene) and
poly(methyl methacrylate) (Queirós et al., 2006) and other ones from natural resourc-
es, such as the chitin, the chitosan, and its derivates (Carvalho et al., 2006). In addi-
tion, the environmental recovery goal can be more easily reached through changes in
the aliphatic/aromatic character of the used polymer materials, allied to a magnetic
induced behavior, making possible to create new magnetic materials able to remove
petroleum from the water.