Cynthia Widjaja, Yovita Djojorahardjo, Alfin Kurniawan, Wenny Irawaty, Felycia Edi Soetaredjo
Jackfruit peel waste is utilized to produce bio-oil using a slow pyrolysis process. However, the high water content of bio-oil gives detrimental impacts such as less lubrication action and low calorific value during the combustion process. Therefore, upgrading process of bio-oil is necessary before its application to substitute fuel for the commercial or industrial burner. Various technologies have been developed for bio-oil upgrading: sub/supercritical fluids, solvent addition, and steam reforming. These methods possess some disadvantages: energy-intensive, low efficiency, high cost, and reduce yield also valuable organic compounds in bio-oil. The removal of water in bio-oil by adsorption technique using low-cost adsorbents (silica gel and natural zeolite) was studied in this work. The adsorption-based purification method can be a new viable alternative to conventional methods, owing to its advantages: simple, high selectivity, low cost, and wide adaptability from laboratory- to industrial-scale operation. Purification of bio-oil using silica gel and zeolite could decrease water content reduced from 40.09% to 27.6% and 25.06%. Zeolite has higher maximum adsorption capacity (qm) and Equilibrium constant of adsorption process (KL) than Silica gel. Zeolite is the best material to obtain the greatest water reduction during bio-oil purification. © 2006-2018 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN).
Department of Chemical Engineering, Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University, Kalijudan, Surabaya, Indonesia