AROMATIZATION OF GAS FRACTION PRODUCT FROM PALM OIL CRACKING USING ZINC AND COBALT MODIFIED ZEOLITE CATALYST

• Main Author: Anugerah Purwadi, Joshua
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Subjects: Teknik kimia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/55139
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Indonesia is the largest palm oil producer in the world. CPO production in Indonesia is 48 million tons/year. This amount provides an opportunity for Indonesia to develop palm oil derivative products into oleochemicals. Most of Indonesia's aromatic compounds are still met by importing abroad. The current production capacity of BTX in Indonesia is 1.663.000 tons/year, while BTX Indonesia needs are 2.565.000 tons/year. This makes Indonesia's current imports of aromatic compounds are 902.000 tons/year, or an estimated value of 1.016 million USD. This causes Indonesia to find a solution to be able to meet the demand for aromatic compounds in the country by utilizing renewable resources. An aromatic compound can be produced through the cracking process of triglycerides, which are the main components of vegetable oil (palm oil). The Chemical and catalysis reaction engineering laboratory of ITB has developed a ZSM5-based catalyst for the cracking reaction of palm oil into aromatic compounds. The performance of this catalyst is that the conversion of palm oil reaches 100% and the yield of liquid products is around 40-45% depending on the type of catalyst used. The yield has the opportunity to be increased by: (1) modifying the catalyst so it has optimum performance results in maximum OLP gain and concentration of aromatic compounds., (2) Regulate the optimum condition for cracking, namely the cracking temperature and WHSV (Bhatia and Zabidi 2001)., (3) Aromatized the by-product gas phase of palm oil cracking process consisting mainly of light olefins and paraffin. In this study, the aromatization of gas product from palm oil cracking was carried out using a zeolite-based catalyst modified with ZnO and Co2O3. The performance test was carried out using a fixed bed pipe reactor using an LPG gas model as feed. The C3/C4 ratio of LPG gas used is 1:1. Performance tests were carried out under operating conditions of 600? and WHSV 1.25 gr/hour.(g-cat) at atmospheric pressure. This study aims to (1) develop a ZSM5 catalyst for the aromatization process of light olefins and paraffin from palm oil cracking to increase the yield of aromatic compounds, (2) develop a 2-stage palm oil cracking process by combining the cracking and aromatization processes of light olefins and paraffin to produce aromatic compounds. The result of this research can then be used to substitute the needs of the national BTX through the downstream process of the palm oil derivative industry.