Coal, natural gas and petroleum-based liquid fuels are still the most widely used energy sources in modern society. The current scenario contrasts with the foreseen shortage of petroleum that was spread out in the beginning of the XXI century, when the concept of "energy security" emerged as an urgent agenda to ensure a good balance between energy supply and demand. Much beyond protecting refineries and oil ducts from terrorist attacks, these issues soon developed to a portfolio of measures related to process sustainability, involving at least three fundamental dimensions: (a) the need for technological breakthroughs to improve energy production worldwide; (b) the improvement of energy efficiency in all sectors of modern society; and (c) the increase of the social perception that education is a key-word towards a better use of our energy resources. Together with these technological, economic or social issues, "energy security" is also strongly influenced by environmental issues involving greenhouse gas emissions, loss of biodiversity in environmentally sensitive areas, pollution and poor solid waste management. For these and other reasons, the implementation of more sustainable practices in our currently available industrial facilities and the search for alternative energy sources that could partly replace the fossil fuels became a major priority throughout the world. Regarding fossil fuels, the main technological bottlenecks are related to the exploitation of less accessible petroleum resources such as those in the pre-salt layer, ranging from the proper characterization of these deep-water oil reservoirs, the development of lighter and more efficient equipment for both exploration and exploitation, the optimization of the drilling techniques, the achievement of further improvements in production yields and the establishment of specialized training programs for the technical staff. The production of natural gas from shale is also emerging in several countries but its production in large scale has several problems ranging from the unavoidable environmental impact of shale mining as well as to the bad consequences of its large scale exploitation in the past. The large scale use of coal has similar environmental problems, which are aggravated by difficulties in its proper characterization. Also, the mitigation of harmful gases and particulate matter that are released as a result of combustion is still depending on the development of new gas cleaning technologies including more efficient catalysts to improve its emission profile. On the other hand, biofuels are still struggling to fulfill their role in reducing our high dependence on fossil fuels. Fatty acid alkyl esters (biodiesel) from vegetable oils and ethanol from cane sucrose and corn starch are mature technologies whose market share is partially limited by the availability of their raw materials. For this reason, there has been a great effort to develop "second-generation" technologies to produce methanol, ethanol, butanol, biodiesel, biogas (methane), bio-oils, syngas and synthetic fuels from lower grade renewable feedstocks such as lignocellulosic materials whose consumption would not interfere with the rather sensitive issues of food security. Advanced fermentation processes are envisaged as "third generation" technologies and these are primarily linked to the use of algae feedstocks as well as other organisms that could produce biofuels or simply provide microbial biomass for the processes listed above. Due to the complexity and cost of their production chain, "third generation" technologies usually aim at high value added biofuels such as biojet fuel, biohydrogen and hydrocarbons with a fuel performance similar to diesel or gasoline, situations in which the use of genetically modified organisms is usually required. In general, the main challenges in this field could be summarized as follows: (a) the need for prospecting alternative sources of biomass that are not linked to the food chain; (b) the intensive use of green chemistry principles in our current industrial activities; (c) the development of mature technologies for the production of second and third generation biofuels; (d) the development of safe bioprocesses that are based on environmentally benign microorganisms; (e) the scale-up of potential technologies to a suitable demonstration scale; and (f) the full understanding of the technological and environmental implications of the food vs. fuel debate. On the basis of these, the main objective of this article is to stimulate the discussion and help the decision making regarding "energy security" issues and their challenges for modern society, in such a way to encourage the participation of the Brazilian Chemistry community in the design of a road map for a safer, sustainable and prosper future for our nation.

Este trabalho apresenta conceitos e metodologias para a realização de estudos de prospecção, utilizando o documento de patente, com fonte de informação tecnológica, para verificar o estado da arte de sistemas denominados "Túnel de diluição", para estudos de emissões veiculares. Este estudo visa a demonstrar, dentre outras, a importância da gestão da informação, como mecanismo de apoio ao monitoramento tecnológico para tomada de decisão, tendo como vetor principal a análise de informação tecnológica em documentos de patentes e o papel do profissional da informação, utilizando as metodologias de estratégias de busca em bancos e bases de dados, como matéria-prima para a realização dos estudos de prospecção. Os métodos de prospecção tecnológica utilizados foram feitos, inicialmente, através de buscas de anterioridade e similaridade em bancos de dados de patentes, nacionais e internacionais, com estratégias de buscas adequadas aos recursos disponíveis em cada base de dados. Assim, este trabalho apresenta a fase da inteligência competitiva, na qual são identificadas, mapeadas, coletadas, tratadas e analisadas as informações extraídas de bases de patentes para geração de mapas de conhecimento, como subsídio ao pensar estratégico, objetivando facilitar e apoiar a tomada de decisão na direção do desenvolvimento do setor industrial. Com os resultados alcançados, foi possível identificar o percentual de documentos de patentes depositados pela área acadêmica, empresas, instituições de pesquisa e pessoas físicas, além de identificar as rotas tecnológicas e empresas detentoras da referida tecnologias no mundo.

This paper presents concepts and methodologies for conducting research studies using the patent document with source of technological information to verify the state of the art system called "Dilution Tunnel" for studies of vehicle emissions. This study aims to demonstrate, among other things, the importance of information management as a mechanism to support technology monitoring for decision making, with the main vector analysis of technological information in patent documents and the role of the information professional using the methodologies search strategies in banks and databases as raw material for the studies of prospecting. Technological forecasting methods were initially used by prior art searches and similarity in patent databases, national and international, as search strategies appropriate to the resources available in each database. This work presents the stage of competitive intelligence where they are identified, mapped, collected, processed and analyzed the information extracted from patent databases to generate knowledge maps as an aid to strategic thinking aimed at facilitating and supporting decision making toward the development of the industrial sector. With the results obtained it was possible to identify the percentage of patent documents deposited by academic, business, research institutions and individuals, and to identify the technological routes and holding companies of such technologies in the world.

Considered the best substitute for diesel, biodiesel can be blended with diesel in any ratio, bringing lots of environmental, economic and social advantages. Brazilian law Nº 11097/2005, proposes the introduction of biodiesel in to the Brazilian energy matrix, mixed with diesel at a minimum percentage of 2%. For consumers and sellers to be sure that the commercialized mixture of biodiesel:diesel contains the correct percentage, it is necessary to develop analytical methodologies to quantify the amount of biodiesel added. This work presents a fast, low-cost and simple methodology to determine the biodiesel proportion in mixtures of biodiesel:diesel, based on infrared spectroscopy.