Pyrolysis of the Basic Soaps of Unsaturated Fatty Acids

• Main Author: (13014005), Usamah Zaki (13014052), Krisnawan
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/28513
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

<p align="justify">The volume of gasoline import is increasing rapidly in Indonesia and leading to a prediction that the country will become the largest gasoline importer in the world by 2018. Concern that this rapidly increasing import will eventually cause country’s trade balance deficit has pinpointed the need of a technology for producing gasoline from domestic resources, preferably bioresources. <br /> <br /> Pyrolysis of the alkyl chains of more common fatty acids, like those present in palm oil, is considered an excellent route to producing gasoline from domestic bioresources. Literature has indicated that for this purpose, unsaturated fatty acids are probably much better than saturated ones and, moreover, shown that in order to prevent the contamination of the gasoline product by short-chain fatty acids, metal compounds that are able to pull-off the carboxyl groups of the fatty acids and form decomposable carbonate salts need to be presence during the pyrolysis reactions. <br /> <br /> Considerations on the potential ability of the metal compound to pull-off carboxyl group as well as its ability to be recycled for reuse has lead to a hypothesis that metal base soap having a general formula &#61549;Ca(OH)2.(1-&#61549;)Mg(OH)2.Zn(OOCR)2, in which RCOOH is an unsaturated fatty acid (or mixture of unsaturated fatty acids) and 0 <&#61549; < 1, are best raw material to be pyrolyzed at 375 – 450 oC for making gasoline having satisfactory quality and yield. <br /> <br /> This research prepared and pyrolyzed metal base soap &#61549;Ca(OH)2.(1-&#61549;)Mg(OH)2.Zn(OOCR)2 from unsaturated fatty acid obtained by PFAD fractionation and mix metal hydroxide Mg-Zn-Ca at variation of &#61549;. Pyrolysis result at the same temperature shown that variation of the value of &#61549; doesn’t have any significant effect to the percentage of light, medium, and heavy fraction hydrocarbon. Alkane and alkene yield increases as &#956; values decrease at various temperatures. Alkane yield decreases, alkene yield increases and isoalkane yield tends to be constant at increasing pyrolysis temperature. Light fraction increases, medium fraction decreases, and heavy fraction increases at increasing pyrolysis temperature. Acquisition of gasoline will be obtained maximally at T = 450 oC dan &#956; = 0,50.<p align="justify">