Judul: Sintesa Metil Ester Sulfonat dari Metil Ester Berbahan Baku PKO pada Skala Pilot Plant
Abstrak: One of the palm oil-based oleochemical industry which has a great prospect to be developed in Indonesia is the surfactant industry. Surfactant is a surface active agent which can be produced by chemical or biochemical synthesis. Surfactant has been widely applied in several kind of industries as adhesive, wetting, foaming, emulsifier, or penetrating material component. One kind of the natural-based surfactant which currently has been researched and developed is the methyl ester sulfonates (MES) surfactant. MES surfactant is one of the anionic surfactant which can be made using the methyl ester from palm oil through the sulfonation process. Research on the MES surfactant production process at the laboratory scale has been conducted many times and it gives product result that can be applied on many kinds of cosmetics, cleaner, and personal care products, and also for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) application on the oil mining. At the upgrading stage of MES surfactant production scale from the laboratory scale to the pilot plant scale, treatment of reaction time and stirring speed on the processing reactor is important to be noticed. The objectives of this research are: (1) to get the process condition which can be used to produce MES surfactant made from PKO-based methyl ester using sulfonation reactor at the pilot plant scale, (2) to obtain the characteristic of the produced MES surfactant product made from PKO-based methyl ester, (3) to get the financial feasibility of the industry of MES surfactant made from PKO-based methyl ester. Sulfonation process of palm kernel oil methyl ester is conducted using batch system in 100 L scale sulfonation reactor tank. Sulfonation process is conducted by mixing the methyl ester and NaHSO3 reactant at reactant mol ratio 1:1.2. Temperature of the process is 100oC. In this research, process variables which are supposed to influence the quality of MES product are the stirring speed at the process and the duration of sulfonation process. The treatment of stirring process consists of 3 grades, those are at the speed of 140, 160 and 180 rpm. The treatment of sulfonation process duration is in every 30 minutes interval in period of 0-360 minutes. Characterization of produced MES product includes test of blue thymol, pH, color (brightness), surface tension decreasing ability, interface tension decreasing ability, emulsion stability, foam stability, and detergency. Determination of relational equation model between product quality parameter and treatment, is using the curve fitting method. Determination of sulfonation process condition, which can be used to produce MES using the existing sulfonation reactor, is conducted using the multi-regression method. The analyzed investment feasibility criteria are Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Net Benefit-Cost Ratio (Net B/C), Break Even Point (BEP), Pay Back Period (PBP) and sensitivity analysis. 7 From the result of this research, it can be concluded that the existing sulfonation reactor can be used to produce MES surfactant using batch system with NaHSO3 as the sulfonating agent. The characteristics of the produced MES product are: (1) blue thymol test gives a positive result, (2) pH before purification : 3.53 – 5.94, (3) pH after purification: 5.77-6.21,
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