Characterization Product of Coconut Shell Gasification as Liquid Fuel Through Catalytic Cracking Process with Activated Natural Zeolite Catalyst

Chemical Engineering Department, Institut Teknologi Nasional Bandung, Indonesia.

^* Corresponding author: yuono@itenas.ac.id

Abstract

There are 3 types of general fuels widely used, namely solid, liquid and gaseous fuels. Liquid fuel is the most frequently used fuels because its the easiest to use and for transportation. Type of liquid fuel commonly used is gasoline and diesel. However, the amount of fossil fuels is dwindling, so that at this time a substitute fuel from biomass and its derivatives is needed. One of the commonly used natural resources is biomass. This biomass is used not only directly but can also be used indirectly. One of them is the gasification process. The gasification process produces 3 products, gas, solid and liquid. The liquid gasification product is rarely used because its considered a B3 waste. The liquid gasification product is tar. Tar is a substance composed of various long chain hydrocarbon compounds. Therefore, tar has the potential to be processed into fuel. Therefore, currently we process tar as a fuel by cracking the tar to obtain light hydrocarbon products which are equivalent to gasoline or diesel. This process uses a natural zeolite catalyst to break down these hydrocarbons. The natural zeolite used is zeolite originating from Padalarang, West Java. This natural zeolite has been processed to obtain a suitable Si/Al content for cracking. After the cracking process with catalyst, liquid fuel will be produced. GCMS test results for liquid products is component acetic acid with a concentration of 5.87.2%, phenol 5.55.9% and C8H10O2 and C8H10O3 9.110.5%. Based on these components, the resulting liquid fuel is equivalent to gasoline.