The scarcity of hand sanitizers, as a result of panic buying after the outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, has become a new problem facing Indonesia now.

To tackle the shortage, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) through its chemical research center has produced hand sanitizers for its internal use and for distribution among schools located around LIPI headquarters.

LIPI Deputy in charge of technical science, Agus Haryono said that the hand sanitizer is produced from the mixture of bioethanol, glycerin, and extractions of gloves and nutmegs which also function as fragrance and anti-microbial. A low concentration of nano-silver content is also added to increase its anti-microbial function. Every batch of production can result in 10 liters of hand sanitizers, which are packaged within 250 ML bottles or 100 ML bottles.

The difference between the hand sanitizers of LIPI and other hand sanitizers in the market is its use of local spices that makes it moderate in fragrance. It also contains 63-65 percent of bio-ethanol as antiseptic and 0.3 percent nanosilver as additional antiseptic. The bioethanol used for the mixture of the hand sanitizers is the second generation bioethanol produced from the empty palm fruit bunches (EFB)

Agus said that LIPI had tested the production of hand sanitizer in LIPI in October 2019. It was initially because the chemical research center of LIPI is the center of excellence for the production of second generation bioethanol. “After several times of production trials, then we found that the second generation bioethanol from the empty palm fruit bunches is suitable as the raw material to produce the hand sanitizers,” said Agus.

To produce the hand sanitizers, LIPI’s chemical research center uses a simple knock-down machine that can be easily assembled for various scales of production. (*)