Persamaan regresi hubungan sifat fisiko-kimia produk hasil transesterifikasi minyak sawit dengan menggunakan katalis KNO3/atapulgit
Abstract
The rapid human population growth has been associated with global energy need for industries, transportation, household, and etc. One of kind of energy that is used rnostly in the world is solar, fuel energy that is made from petroleum oil for diesel machine. On the other hand, biodiesel can be used as fuel energy alternative to fulfill the global need of solar. Biodiesel can be made by transesterification of palm oil and methanol mixture as raw material and catalyst. Catalyst plays important role to increase the rate of transesterification. One of potential catalyst is impregnated Potassium Nitrate to Attapulgite that acts as heterogeneous catalyst. However, because of silica, magnesium, and aluminu~n content, attapulgite can also be used as catalyst support. Transesterification of palm oil not only produces methyl ester (biodiesel) but also would change the properties of that oil, such as fiee glycerol, acid value, viscosity, and refractive index. By regression analysis of transesterification result product property change, the reaction mechanism of transesterification of palm oil using that catalyst would be understandable. The aims of the research are to determine regression analysis of relationship between properties of palm oil transesterification product with time and with one another. The step of the research are characterization of palm oil as raw material, determine the optimum of agitation rate, then determine the regression equation of relation between physical and chemical properties of palm oil transesterification product with time and with one another. Procedure of this research is started from catalyst preparation, then transesterification process using attapulgite impregnated with KNO3 as catalyst. The curve fitting least square analysis showed that the fitting mathematical model of the data regression analysis palm oil transesterification is in quadratic equation for the relation between free glycerol with reaction time, acid value with reaction time, refractive index with reaction time, and relation between kinematic viscosity with reaction time. However, the curve fitting least square analysis showed that relationship between inter-physical and chemical propelties of palm oil transesterification is in quadratic equation for the relation between free glycerol and acid value.