#TITLE_ALTERNATIVE#

• Main Author: ALAMANDA (NIM 13003092), JELITA
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/10722
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Oil production in Indonesia tends to decrease at the moment in line with the declining of oil field production capacity due to its age. Since the world oil demand are increasing significantly, this has promoted the need for methodology to increase the production capacity of some oil field in Indonesia through enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods. Surfactant flooding is one of the EOR methodology. In this approach, surfactant is used as an agent to release oil products that are trapped in some pores of oil formation by reducing interfacial tension (IFT) between oil and water. Some surfactant that has been used for surfactant flooding is petroleum sulfonate. The increasing crude oil price and awareness to the environmental problems raise the requirement of surfactant product based on renewable resources. Methyl ester sulfonates (MES) is a surfactant that can be applicated on surfactant flooding and be produced from renewable resources, such as natural oil.<p> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> MES is made through sulfonation of methyl ester from the crude palm oil (CPO), which is one of the natural oil that could be found in Indonesia. The main problem in this process is determining optimum operation condition on obtaining MES product that could be used for surfactant flooding. The research includes (i) sulfonation of methyl ester with two fixed reactants until product purification with methanol and netralization with NaOH, (ii) determining the optimum sulfonation process condition, and (iii) characterization of the MES obtained. The modification made in this research is the kinds of raw material used, sulfonation temperature, and the period of sulfonation reaction.<p> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> The sulfonation of methyl ester with NaHSO3 didn't succeed on creating MES. This is verified by the absent of the spectrum of sulfonate group on the product analyzed with FTIR. While the sulfonation of methyl ester with H2SO4 gives a more contented result; the spectrum of the sulfonate group was identified. Meanwhile, the sulfonation of methyl ester with H2SO4 could also triggered a carbonization process. Optimization to prevent this carbonization problem is using methyl ester with low iodine number, using methyl ester with 8 to 18 carbon atoms, sulfonating on a period under two hours, and using a temperature under 70oC for sulfonating.