Distillation-Adsorption of Bioethanol Using Natural Kaolin

Abstract

Bioethanol has been known as one of the alternative energy sources to replace petroleum. The use of bioethanol as a fuel has requirements that must meet fuel standards or refer to as Fuel Grade Ethanol (FGE). Further refining is required to achieve this qualification. The distillation method is the most commonly used method in bioethanol purification, but the results are less than optimal and sometimes the ethanol produced will be more volatile. Distillation-adsorption method using clay-based materials was developed to solve this problem. The purpose of this study is to purify bioethanol and determine the physical characteristics of the bioethanol produced and to assess the % purity of bioethanol from adsorption distillation. Characterization of activated natural kaolin as adsorbent, determination of the optimum contact time in the distillation-adsorption process, determination of the optimum mass of kaolin used and determination of the physical properties of bioethanol have been carried out. The results showed that 1 hour adsorption distillation could increase the ethanol content from 7.9% to 29.33%. In the study of the effect of the mass of kaolin, the optimum result was 25.25% ethanol using a mass of 5 grams. physical properties test of bioethanol obtained a density of 0.8211 gr/cm3 and a viscosity of 2.096 cps.