SYNTHESIS OF IRON OXIDE/SYNTHETIC ZEOLITE NANOPARTICLES AND ITS APPLICATION AS CATALYST IN AQUATHERMOLYSIS REACTION

• Main Author: DWINANTO (NIM : 10210083); Pembimbing : Dr. Eng. Ferry Iskandar, ERLANDY
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/20076
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Due to the continuity of ever increasing energy demand which grows up to 33% from total world energy consumption in 2012, whereas scarcity of conventional oil production looming around everywhere, utilization of new unconventional resources in the form of heavy oil is beginning to surge. In this research, development of new <br /> <br /> <br /> type of catalyst in the form of nanocomposite of iron oxide, both Fe2O3 and Fe3O4, with Faujasite (FAU)-type synthetic zeolite was made. Co-precipitation and microwave-assisted co-precipitation method were employed in order to synthesis Fe3O4 and Fe2O3 nanoparticles. In this research, FeCl3&#903;6H2O and FeCl2&#903;4H2O were used as Fe source, while NaOH and NH4OH were used as co-recipitator. For microwave-assisted co-precipitation method, microwave heating was conducted and continued by calcination at 400 &#8304;C for 1 hour. The as-synthesized nanocomposite of iron oxide/synthetic zeolite was later characterized by X-ray Diffraction (XRD) with the spectrum conform to JCPDS references which verify correct materials had been synthesized. According to scanning electron microscopy (SEM) the average particles size of &#945;-Fe2O3/Synthetic Zeolite and Fe3O4/Synthetic Zeolite are 98,3 nm and 75,6 nm respectively. Other characterizations such as Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) and Brunnaur-Emmet-Teller (BET) were used to determine the composition and the high-surface area of the nanoparticles respectively. Aquathermolysis reaction in laboratory scale was conducted by using autoclave at 200 &#8304;C. In addition, aquathermolysis time variation from 2 hours up to 24 hours and variation on the amount of catalyst used from 0%, 0.1%, 0.2%, 0.3%, 0.4%, and 0.5 wt% were also employed to know the optimum parameter for catalytic aquathermolysis reaction. Based on those results, the best viscosity reduction was achieved under the addition of 0.3 wt% catalyst and 24 h of heating at 200 &#8304;C, with percentage of viscosity reduction up to 81.9%. Moreover, in order to detect several important chemical bonds contained in heavy oil, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) characterization was done both before and after the <br /> <br /> <br /> reaction, with the results showed some changes in the amount of saturated and aromatic hydrocarbon content and also N-H and C-S bond breakage after the aquathermolysis reaction.