O desenvolvimento de um processo vem se tornando uma prioridade para a industria brasileira pela necessidade de ganhar independencia nas areas tecnologicas. Para contribuir com esse escopo, desenvolveu-se o presente trabalho, no qual sao exploradas algumas das etapas do desenvolvimento de um processo. Para tanto, escolheu-se estudar a tercio-butil-hidroquinona que e um antioxidante de oleos e gorduras vegetais. O processo delineado empregou o tercio-butanol como agente alquilante da hidroquinona, numa reacao cujo solvente foi o eter etilico e o catalisador, o acido sulfurico. A otimizacao da reacao empregou o metodo da superficie de resposta e conduziu as seguintes condicoes, dentro da faixa explorada: a reacao ocorre a pressao atmosferica, durante trinta e cinco minutos, a sessenta graus celsius, numa razao molar entre hidroquinona e tercio-butanol de um para tres, e com trinta e cinco por cento, sobre a massa de reagentes, de catalisador. Encarando o sistema como tendo cinetica simples, chegou-se a que a reacao envolvida e de segunda ordem. Foram realizados estudos sobre o processo de separacao para obtencao do produto isolado. Como sintese do trabalho, gerou-se um diagrama de blocos que ilustra as principais etapas percorridas, bem como apresenta uma ideia do balanco de massa em cada etapa do processo.

The development of a process has became a priority in the Brazilian plants because the Independence is extremely important to Brazil in the technological areas. The objective of this work was to contribute to reach this end: some of the principal stages that constitute the elements of a process development were explored. Terc-butyl-hydroquinone, an antioxidant product used in the fats and vegetables oils, was chosen to be studied. From the important stage of the bibliographic review were taken the bases to build the synthesis process that used the terc-buthanol as the alquylant agent of the hydroquinone. Ethilic ether was used as the solvent of the reaction that was catalyzed by sulfuric acid. Aspects of the optimization of the reactional process with the surface response method were studied, wich has conducted to the following results: - reaction time - 35 minutes; - atmospheric pressure; - reaction temperature - 60°C, - molar rate between hydroquinone and terc-buthanol- 1:3; - catalyst concentration - 35% on the reactant mass. With the results of this optimization the next step was to obtain some aspects of the kinetics of the reaction synthesis. The result of this step was a second order system, since this was taken as a simple kinetic system. The separation process to obtain the pure product was also studied. Summing up this work, it was generated a block diagram that illustrates the several stages followed from the synthesis of the product itself to the obtention of the pure terc-butyl-hydroquinone, offering, yet, an idea of the mass balance in each stage.