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The influence of hydraulic retention time (HRT) on treating domestic wastewater of Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) was investigated in the pilot plant bio-continuous stirred tank reactor (Bio-CSTR) 1 m3. The bio-CSTR was operated at mesophilic condition and under two HRT conditions (33.3 days and 100 days) aimed to evaluate biogas productivity and operational stability. The pilot plant system was started with cow manure in the beginning, and its combination of POME, cow manure, and urea-DAP as micro nutrition in the first week. Afterward feeding of fresh POME was set between pH 5.4 and 5.5 by mixed it with overflow and further adjusted it with commercial ash soda. The performance observation shows that at shorter HRT, the organic compound was not consumed optimally. This was indicated by low pH 5.1 at the bio CSTR system and the amount biogas produced reached 54.3 L. In addition, it was needed more amount of ash soda to adjust the feeding. Setting by extending the HRT was gradually increased the pH so that needed less ash soda to adjust the pH. The biogas produced was increased 11.3 times higher than that of biogas at short HRT. The effectiveness of POME usage was got by the more organic compound was decomposed that indicated by lower COD analyzed at overflow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trend of using palm oil-based commodities in the global market continues to increase from year to year. Along with the development of the palm oil industry, the greater the amount of solid waste that accumulates can cause environmental problems. Slow pyrolysis technology is one alternative solution to overcome the pollution of oil palm lignocellulosic solid waste. The process produces carbon as green energy and has the potential for many applications such as activated carbon (absorbent, pharmaceutical, catalyst, energy storage) and soil remediation. This study is focused on the development of carbon material from oil palm solid waste such as palm kernel shells (PKS), empty fruits bunch (EFB), and oil palm frond (OPF). The oil palm solid wastes were carbonized with/without KOH activation under 300 – 700°C, heating rate 10°C/min, held for 30 min, and at atmospheric pressure. Before the experiments, the raw solid biomass were characterized the component content analysis, ultimate analysis, and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The study shows that the biochars produced by pretreatment of KOH have a higher carbon content than that without pretreatment. The carbon content of biochar was analyzed using a CHN analyzer. The results of OPF with KOH activation have the highest C content of 84.4% at pyrolysis of 600°C. This result is in line with the characteristics of OPF, which has the highest holocellulose content among others. Fourier Transform IR (FTIR) spectra exhibited some functional groups on the surface of biochars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia located in equator area has abundant biomass which is the most attractive source among other alternative resources. Biomass also represents a high potential for the sustainable production of both valuable chemicals and biofuels. Biomass in Indonesia offers abundance, easy availability, carbon neutrality, and eco-friendly features make a positive impact on this situation, decreases of oil reserves and increases prices of oil-based fuels. Thermo-chemical routes considered as a suitable technology for utilization of biomass like Hydrothermal Liquefaction (HTL) to produce Bio Crude Oil (BCO). Various solvents like water, alkali, polar, and organic acid were examined to observe the characteristic of process at 300°C. HTL was conducted in 1000 ml high pressure and temperature reactor. This work used frond oil palm which is abundantly available and untapped resources in palm plantations. The experiment confirmed that the pressure in reactor depend on the vapour pressure of the solvent. In addition, the vapor pressure is also determined by the boiling point. Water and alkali solvent gave the same operating pressure as indicated by the vapor pressure of water, 82 bar. Unfortunately, the biomass was polymerized at 300°C. To prevent the polymerization, a commercial cracking catalyst was added to break the polymer chain of the product. Regarding the product, water, as a solvent, produced bio-char 37%. Alkali solution has a role to breakdown part of lignin so that the char decreased to 30%. In addition, further degrade biomass could be work more effective by combining cracking catalyst like NiMo that showed by formation of CO, CO2 and CH4. Those gases formation showed decarboxylation, decarboxylation, and cracking process, respectively. Catalyst as expected, avoid the polymerization that can be seen at powdering of biochar. The catalyst worked more effective in acid condition as shown by more CH4 in syngas. Unfortunately, the liquid product was still dominated by water, more than 80% and the yield of BCO was considered very low. TGA analyzed showed the volatile compound that vaporized between 110-300°C was considered the component that might cause be converted into water. Therefore, the work would focus more at chemicals content produced by HTL like acetic acid, phenol, ester, and ether. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biomass syngas as the intermediate product of utilization biomass to liquid fuel, bio-methanol. The syngas production itself was conducted due to its environmentally clean fuel and reducing greenhouse effect. The syngas was subject to low cost catalytic methanol synthesis assessment in term of low pressure and low temperature using high local content was developed in BPPT Indonesia. The catalyst has key role to achieve optimal conditions through lowering energy activation. BPPT has developed the methanol synthesis with Cu-based impregnation catalyst using γ-Al2O3 and Activated-Carbon from palm oil shell as support catalyst. Previous experiments delivered maximum methanol product reached 8 % by operational condition 14 bar and 260°C which closed to equilibrium concentration. Further work studied more detail using internal standard and simulation by MATLAB 2014. By this condition 4% of CO was converted to methanol. Validation conducted in micromeritic at 260°C of the simulation showed maximum yield based on H2 conversion reached up to 35.39 and 31.17% at 14 and 17 bars respectively. CO conversion calculation gave maximum yield up to 36.39 and 35.45% at 14 and 17 bars respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Removing lignin, delignification, is necessary to increase the cellulose and hemicellulose contents. Usually, the conventional of delignification process involves high alkaline (2.5 M) and high temperature (150 °C) conditions. In this work, the delignification of oil palm Empty Fruit Bunch (EFB) was investigated using microwave irradiation at low alkaline concentrations. Further, the effect of adding hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) as a hydroxyl radical source in the delignification process was also evaluated. The delignification of EFB was carried out by adding 7.5 g of EFB/L and 500 ppm of H2O2 in NaOH solution until the total volume of 200 mL. The process was conducted in the microwave with a setting power of 100 Watt for 15 min. The NaOH concentration varied at 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, and maximum at 0.8 M, around 10% of the conventional delignification condition. It was found that the temperature of the solution increased with increasing times of the microwave radiation process. The total suspended solid (TSS) was influenced significantly by NaOH concentration. The addition of H2O2 has less effect on lignin removal. Lignin removal in 0.2 M NaOH without and with H2O2 reached 26% and 27%, respectively. The higher NaOH concentration could penetrate holocellulose so that the lignin percentage increased. The visualization of EFB by SEM proved that delignification proceeded successfully, in which could remove impurities from the surface of EFB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]