Antaresti, Y. Sudaryanto, Setiyadi, H. Wibowo, Yogi, Y. Purnomo
The amount of sugarcane bagasse in Indonesia is abundant while the utilization is still limited. One of the alternatives for bagasse utilization is as pulp material. To minimize the waste from the pulping process, the effect of using a chemical process (with nitric acid) and a biopulping process (using Fusarium solani) were studied and measured by the percentage of α-cellulose content in bagasse pulp. In the chemical process, the nitric acid concentration and the reaction time were varied. The pulping process was conducted at constant temperature of 102°C and the mixture was agitated at 900 rpm. The highest percentage of α-cellulose content in pulp was 79.28%, obtained at the concentration of 3.5% for a reaction time of 3.5 hours. At higher concentrations and longer cooking times, the α-cellulose decreased due to the cellulose degradation. In the biopulping process, the incubation temperature was kept at 30°C. The highest percentage of α-cellulose was 65.80% obtained at an incubation time of 25 days. When compared to nitric acid pulping, biopulping is less efficient. However it has one advantage that it only uses a small amount of chemicals and, therefore, creates less pollutants.
Department of Chemical Engineering, Widya Mandala Catholic University, Surabaya 60114, Jl. Kalijudan 37, Indonesia