Asetalisasi Gliserol Produk Samping Industri Biodiesel Menjadi Solketal Menggunakan Katalis Amberlyst-15

Abstract

The government’s made a mandatory program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by encourages the growth of biodiesel production. On the other side, the production of biodiesel has a by-product: glycerol. To improve the economics of the biodiesel production, it’s desirable to convert glycerol into value products: solketal, oxygenated fuel additives. Solketal can be used to reduce the particulate emission, improve cold flow properties etc. Solketal produced from acetalization of glycerol with acetone was conducted over a heterogeneous acid catalyst, Amberlyst-15, in a batch reactor. Acetalization crude glycerol for producing solketal with parameters: temperature and reaction time. The results indicated that at catalyst concentration 1%, the optimum condition in this acetalization: reaction temperature is 60°C and 90 minutes which have a conversion value of 51,90%. When compared to another glycerol, the higher conversion was obtained with pure ones which has a conversion value of 55,67%. Crude glycerol has low conversion because of its impurities, these are: water, sodium chloride and methanol in different amounts.