The election of edible and non edible crop for biodiesel feedstock in Indonesia with AHP-BCR and GC analysis

Abstract

The increasing trend of domestic fuel consumption that is not followed by domestic fuel production creating problem for Indonesian government to fulfill the shortage of fuel consumption. The high dependence of Indonesian government on imported fuel creates some problem due to the large subsidy that must be given as a result of the increasing oil prices. This makes the development of biofuel important, especially biodiesel with an abundant raw material in Indonesia. In this work, the best alternative and the composition of raw materials for making biodiesel were investigated by using Gas Chromatographic (GC) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) - benefit-cost ratio (BCR). With GC analysis, it is expected to know the content of triglyceride (TG) and free fatty acid (FFA) content in crude oil for each alternative raw material. While the AHP-BCR analysis is expected to know the best alternative to raw materials for biodiesel production. The alternative raw materials that are selected namely Calophyllum inophyllum and Jatropha curcas . The selection of alternative raw material based on oil content, yield, and raw material cost. The criteria used for benefit hierarchy structure are economic, social, raw material availability, environment and technical. As for the hierarchy of cost structure, the criteria are the price of raw materials, opportunity cost, processing cost, environmental cost, and social cost. The present study clearly proved that C. inophyllum and Jatropha curcas oil potentially become the best alternative material for biodiesel production. The result shown from benefit-cost ratio were almost identical ( jatropha curcas , 1.01 and C.Inophyllum , 1). From GC analysis, C. Inophyllum became the potential alternative material because it has the biggest oil content for crude (75.99%) and after purification (94.24%).