Análise do ciclo de vida do biodiesel no mercado brasileiro e quantifica o das emiss es liberadas pelo uso desse combustível

The purpose of this research was to describe the use of biodiesel in the Brazilian market in order to analyze the fuel s life cycle and its emissions release. To do this, a comparison was made between the consumption of diesel and biodiesel between 2006 and 2009; the estimated carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted in the year 2009 was also calculated. The use of fossil fuels can be considered the largest contributor to CO2 emissions in the environment. The search for alternative energy appears as the most viable solution to reduce air pollution. The substitution of conventional diesel fuel by biodiesel has become an interesting and environmentally friendly solution. In this study it was found that the higher the percentage of biodiesel, the lower the rate of CO2 emissions, resulting in an improvement of atmospheric air.