Tirto Prakoso
The recent demand of green energy sources has driven technology development into production of renewable fuels. Among the types of renewable fuels, biohydrocarbon is one of the most attractive form. It can be applied onto current automotive machine without blending with fossil fuel. Biohydrocarbon can be produced from plant oils via decarboxylation of metal soap. Nevertheless, a hydrolysis step to convert plant oils into free fatty acids is required to synthesize metal soap. A low- cost technology to overcome this problem is hydrolysis reaction using lipase enzyme. This research aims to provide comparison between biohydrocarbon product composition involving enzymatic pretreatment and without enzymatic pretreatment. Palm oil was selected as process feed, and crude plant lipase was selected as lipolytic agent. The process was conducted in three steps: lipolysis of triglycerides, preparation of metal soap, decarboxylation of metal soap. Results shows that enzymatic pretreatment increased selectivity towards diesel fuel fraction, although fractionation will enable utilization of shorter chain fraction. Biohydrocarbon produced using enzymatic pretreatment, contains longer chain compared to biohydrocarbon without enzymatic pretreatment. It might be an effect of monoglyceride presence, which is produced from lipolysis. Monoglyceride is an intermediate substance in hydrolysis of triglyceride. It might be easier to be saponified than triglyceride, thus metal soap from monoglyceride might be formed. When decarboxylation was performed into monoglyceride metal soap, long chains of hydrocarbons may have been produced more compared to decarboxylation of fatty acid metal soap.
Penerapan Teknologi Tepat Guna, Penerapan Karya Tulis
Needed a hydrolysis step to convert plant oils into free fatty acids is required to synthesize metal soap.