preparation of palm fatty acid distillate (pfad) as raw

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By Barry Wiethoff

11404033

BACHELOR’S DEGREE

In

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING –

SUSTAINABLE ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT CONCENTRATION FACULTY OF LIFE SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY

SWISS GERMAN UNIVERSITY The Prominence Tower

Jalan Jalur Sutera Barat No. 15, Alam Sutera Tangerang, Banten 15143 - Indonesia

Agustus 2018

Revision after Thesis Defense on 24 July 2018

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STATEMENT BY THE AUTHOR

I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge, it contains no material previously published or written by another person, nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at any educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis.

Barry Wiethoff

Student Date

Approved by:

Dr.-Ing. Evita H. Legowo

Thesis Advisor Date

Dr.-Ing. Diah Indriani Widiputri, S.T., M.Sc.

Thesis Co-Advisor Date

Dr. Dipl.-Ing. Samuel P. Kusumocahyo

Dean Date

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PREPARATION OF PALM FATTY ACID DISTILLATE (PFAD) AS RAW MATERIAL FOR BIO AVIATION FUEL PRODUCTION

By

Barry Wiethoff

Dr.-Ing. Evita H. Legowo, Advisor

Dr.-Ing. Diah Indriani Widiputri, S.T., M.Sc., Co-Advisor SWISS GERMAN UNIVERSITY

Nowadays, aviation sector became one of the most important transportation in the world. The demand in this sector has increased rapidly over the last 10 years.

Unfortunately, the increase of the demand leads to an increase of fuel consumption and CO2 emission in the aviation’s sector. Bio-based aviation fuel is believed to be one of the solution for the reduction of CO2 emission in the aviation’s sector. Palm Fatty Acid Distillate (PFAD) which is a by-product of palm oil refinery, contains a high amount of free fatty acids. The free fatty acids contained in the PFAD are able to be converted into straight hydrocarbon chain through decarboxylation process. This thesis conducted 3 different experiments to find out the best decarboxylation reaction’s condition to convert the FFA into straight chain hydrocarbons over an activated carbon catalyst. The experiments compared the results between the experiment with different reaction’s conditions and the presence of solvent in the reaction. The results have shown that the third experiment, which used heptane as solvent and hydrogen in argon gas as reaction’s environment, has the best reaction’s condition among others. Experiment 3 has converted 77.07% of the FFA, while experiment 2 and 1 only converted 58.37% and 16.30% respectively.

Keywords: Bio aviation fuel, Palm Fatty Acid Distillate, Decarboxylation, Activated Carbon, Free Fatty Acid.

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DEDICATION

I dedicate my thesis work to my parents, Dipl.-Ing. Markus Wiethoff and Dra.

Amdainita Siregar Wiethoff, my family, and my lecturers who have always been there to support me, and strove to help me to think and understand, also inspired me to finish this work. I could not have done this without you.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In this opportunity, firstly I would like to thank Allah SWT for His guidance, health, and blessings He gave to me throughout the period of finishing this thesis work.

Secondly, I would like to thank my parents and all of my family for always giving me advice, support, love and trust in every situation, especially during my thesis work.

I would like to thank my advisor, Dr.-Ing. Evita Herawati Legowo and my co-Advisor, Dr.-Ing- Diah Indriani Widiputri, S.T., M.Sc., for all of their thoughts, time, guidance, support, and passion they gave me during the process of finishing my work and for the help they gave me to solve problems that arose during the work. I never could have finished my thesis without them.

I would also like to thank the dean of Life Science and Technology faculty, Dr. Dipl.- Ing. Samuel P. Kusumocahyo, Head of Chemical Engineering department, Hery Sutanto, S.Si., M.Si. for their help and support.

Special thanks to the chemistry lab assistant, Roziq Israfiandi for all of his time, help, support, and advice, and for always answering my stupid question during the time in the laboratory. May God reply all of your kindness.

To Mr. Ali Rimbasa Siregar, S.T., M.T. and Mr. Sulamta from LEMIGAS for their help and advice during the time I have spent in LEMIGAS’s laboratory.

To my friends, Monica Perdhani Putri, Melianty Harjadi, Vimothy Daniel M, Pratiwi Andayani, Krisna Kuma, and everyone else for making the time that I spent in the laboratory more enjoyable and cheerful.

Last but not least, I would like to thank Swiss German University and Research and Development Centre for Oil and Gas Technology (LEMIGAS) for allowing me to conduct my thesis work in their laboratory.

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ABSTRACT ... 3

DEDICATION ... 5

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... 6

LIST OF FIGURES ... 10

LIST OF TABLES ... 11

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION ... 12

1.1. Background ... 12

1.2. Research Problems ... 13

1.3. Research Objectives ... 14

1.4. Significance of Study ... 14

1.5. Research Questions ... 14

1.6. Hypothesis ... 14

CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW ... 15

2.1. Emission in The Aviation Sector ... 15

2.2. Bio Aviation fuel ... 16

2.3. Oil Palm ... 18

2.3.1. Palm Fatty Acid Distillate (PFAD) ... 20

2.4. Physicochemical Properties Analysis ... 22

2.4.1. Moisture Content ... 22

2.4.2. Free Fatty Acid Content ... 23

2.4.3. Iodine Value ... 23

2.4.4. Peroxide Value ... 24

2.4.5. Saponification Value ... 24

2.5. Method of Bio-Aviation Fuel Production From Palm Fatty Acid Distillate... 25

2.5.1. Hydroprocessed Renewable Jet (HRJ) ... 25

2.5.2. Catalytic Hydrothermolysis (CH) ... 26

2.6. Decarboxylation ... 28

2.6.1. Decarboxylation Catalyst ... 29

2.7. Raw Material and Product Composition analysis ... 29

2.7.1. Gas Chromatography Flame Ionization Detector (GC-FID) ... 29

2.7.2. Fourier-transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) ... 31

CHAPTER 3 - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 34

3.1. Venue and Time ... 34

3.2. Materials and Equipment ... 34

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3.3. Design of Experiment ... 35

3.4. Experimental Procedure ... 36

3.4.1. Sample Analysis ... 36

3.4.1.1. Moisture Content ... 37

3.4.1.2. Free Fatty Acid Analysis ... 37

3.4.1.3. Iodine Value ... 37

3.4.1.4. Peroxide Value ... 38

3.4.1.5. Saponification Value ... 38

3.4.1.6. Fatty Acid Composition ... 39

3.4.2. Palm Fatty Acid Distillate Pre-treatment ... 39

3.4.3. Decarboxylation ... 39

3.4.4. Hydrocarbon Identification ... 42

3.5. Data Observation ... 43

3.6. Analytical Procedure ... 43

CHAPTER 4 - RESULT AND DISCUSSION ... 44

4.1. Raw Material’s Physical and Chemical Properties ... 44

4.1.1. Free Fatty Acid Content ... 44

4.1.2. Moisture Content ... 45

4.1.3. Peroxide Value ... 45

4.1.4. Iodine Value ... 46

4.1.5. Saponification Value ... 47

4.2. Palm Fatty Acid Distillate Composition ... 48

4.3. Decarboxylation Process of Palm Fatty Acid Distillate... 50

4.3.1. Experiment 1 ... 50

4.3.2. Experiment 2 ... 52

4.3.3. Experiment 3 ... 54

CHAPTER 5 – CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION... 56

5.1. Conclusion ... 56

5.2. Recommendation ... 56

REFERENCES ... 58

APPENDICES ... 63

Appendix 1. Free Fatty Acid Content Calculation ... 63

Appendix 2. Peroxide Value Calculation ... 68

Appendix 3. Iodine Value Calculation ... 70

Appendix 4. Saponification Value Calculation ... 72

Appendix 5. FFA Conversion of Decarboxylation product ... 74

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Appendix 8. FTIR Spectroscopy Result of Experiment 1 ... 77

Appendix 11. FTIR Spectroscopy Result of Heptane (solvent) ... 80

Appendix 12. GC-FID Result of Experiment 1 ... 81

Appendix 15. GC-FID Result of Palm Fatty Acid Distillate ... 84

CURRICULUM VITAE ... 90