Transition to a new energy low carbon pool requires the gradual replacing of fossil fuels with other cleaner energies and biofuels. In this work, the environmental impact of renewable diesel production using an attributional life cycle assessment was evaluated by considering five stages: palm plantation-culture-harvest, palm oil extraction, palm oil refining, green (renewable) diesel production, and biofuel use. The functional unit was established as 1.6 × 10⁻² m³(13.13 kg) of renewable diesel. The results show that the production of renewable diesel by Hydro-processed Esters and Fatty Acids is more environmentally friendly than fossil diesel production. In particular, the analysis showed that the CO₂emission decreases around 110% (i.e. mitigation occurred) compared with conventional diesel production. However, renewable diesel production has a relevant environmental impact in the human toxicity category due to the high consumption of agrochemicals during palm culture.

Biofuels are an attractive alternative from polluting activities to low carbon ones. In this understanding, biodiesel has the potential to replace fossil diesel. Density is a relevant parameter of biodiesel to work out its quality. Density models lead to reducing the costly and time-consuming experimental measurements. We compiled two databases to prove a group contribution approach. For this purpose, the first database contained 1231 densities of 58 alkyl esters, while the second covered 696 densities of 16 pure biodiesel samples and 8 biodiesel blends. The group contribution method based on the molar volume was used to estimate the alkyl ester densities, while the mixing rule proposed by Kay was used to predict the biodiesel densities. The method developed here is easy to apply and provides excellent results, because an average absolute deviation of 0.29% was reached on the biodiesel density prediction.