Sampaio, MariaGomes, Helder2010-02-082010-02-082008Sampaio, Maria; Gomes, Helder (2008). Production of biodiesel using heterogeneous acid catalysts. In XXI Encontro Nacional da Sociedade Portuguesa de Química. Porto.http://hdl.handle.net/10198/1756The scarcity of known petroleum reserves will make renewable energy resources more attractive in the near future. Currently, biodiesel is the best candidate for diesel fuels in diesel engines, since it is environmentally friendly and easily produced by transesterification of triglycerides (vegetable oils and animal fats) with metanol, using homogeneous alkali or acid catalysts. However, as they are easily separated and recovered from the product mixture, heterogeneous catalysts are desired alternatives to optimize the biodiesel synthesis procedure. Several heterogeneous catalytic systems have been proposed in the last few years [1].engconference object