PEMURNIAN GLISEROL DARI HASIL SAMPING PEMBUATAN BIODIESEL

Abstract

Glycerol is biodiesel byproduct and has high economic value, so it needs purification to get high purity.Crude glycerol was obtained from triglyceride transesterification with methanol and KOH catalyst. The aims of this research were purify glycerol from biodiesel byproduct and determine the suitable of adsorbent for bleaching of glycerol. Crude glycerol used in this research was from waste of cooking oil and kapokseed oil. In purification of glycerol from waste cooking oil is started by separate methanol and water by distillation. It followed byadding 6% acid solution (HCl, H2SO4, H3PO4). Glycerol was mixed with acid solution by 3:10 ratio and the solution was then filtrated to separate the salt.  The filtrate was then bleached by adding 2% weight adsorbent (activated carbon, bleaching earth and activated zeolite), then stirred for 30 minutes at 30 oC. The solution was settled for 120 minutes and then filtered by whatman paper. The results showed that the optimum density of glycerol was 1.26 g/ml with addition of H2SO4 6% volume and 0,5% water content. The brightest color of glycerol was light brown resulted from the adsorption process used bleaching earth.