Currently, the government is seriously considering the importance of fuels development from renewable materials in an effort to reduce dependence on petroleum. It can be seen in the presence of gas stations that provide biodiesel fuel, which is a mixture of diesel with biodiesel. Because of the availability of the supply is assured, CPO is still the main raw material. However, the existing biodiesel plants today mostly still use alkaline liquid, such as NaOH or KOH, as catalyst. "After the process ends, the rest of these corrosive catalysts will be disposed, thus it will generate quite a lot of alkaline waste," said Prof. Arief Budiman, D. Eng., Chemical Engineering Department staff and coordinator of UGM Process System Engineering (PSE) research group.
In relation to this, Department of Chemical Engineering UGM invited Tokyo Institute of Technology (TIT), Japan, to jointly develop a solid catalyst based on biomass waste to produce biodiesel. According to Arief, solid catalyst in biodiesel production has many advantages in environmental issues.
"It also has advantages on industrial scale, because it reduces production costs as the solid catalyst can be regenerated repeatedly," he added.
Meanwhile, according to another researcher in this team, Prof. Rochmadi, Ph.D., catalyst material that is used is biomass waste from coconut shell, rivets wood and bengkirei wood that are abundant in Indonesia. The use of biomass waste will, of course, reduce the cost of disposal. In addition, it will provide catalyst material which is relatively cheap.
"Another advantage of solid catalysts is that it can be used on a large scale biodiesel production that operates continuously; the technology is currently being developed by the PSE research group," Rochmadi explained.
In relation to the cooperation, Prof. Arief Budiman visited TIT to conduct discussions and other scholarly activities with his counterpart, Prof. Hirofumi Hinode. On the occasion, Hinode said, "This research area will be very important for Japan and Indonesia because solid catalyst development can help solve significantly global environmental problems and improve efficiency of biodiesel plants".
Hinode, TIT coordinator of the Catalyst and Process Systems research group, said that this time his team consisting of S-2 and S-3 students and coordinated by assistant professor, has developed a solid catalyst from biomass waste originating from ashes from sugar mills .
In line with Hinode, Chandra Wayu Purnomo, member of the researchers who is also an S-3 student at TIT, expected that the cooperation will produce the most effective waste material for manufacturing solid catalyst. TIT and UGM plan to produce this catalyst to be exploited by existing biodiesel plants in Indonesia and Japan.
"Hopefully, this catalyst can be produced in large quantities so it will benefit the societies in Indonesia and Japan," Chandra added.
At the end of discussion and meeting, Prof. Hirofumi Hinode, who also serves as Head of Department of International Development Engineering of TIT, hoped that in the future UGM not only cooperates with TIT in the field of research, but also exchange of students and lecturers. "Hopefully, this research collaboration is the first step towards an ongoing collaboration between UGM and TIT," Hinode added.