JAKARTA – Waste of cooking oil, which is locally known as ‘jelantah’, has been increasing due to the increase of public consumption of cooking oil made from palm oil. Certain groups of people had utilized the used cooking oil as the raw material to produce biodiesel, but its crude glycerol as a derivative is still wasted.
By utilizing the crude glycerol, three students of chemical engineering at Surabaya Institute of Technology (ITS) managed to create an innovation by converting the waste into beneficial lactic acid.
The three students –Gardini Nilasari, Annisa Putri Agustin and Dewi Septiningtyas, as part of the ITS contingent in the 33rd Pimnas or national students’ scientific festivity, managed to win a gold award in the category of exact research recently.
Gardini, as the coordinator of the contingent, said that their research was based on the fact that there was crude glycerol piling up in the laboratory of ITS chemical division.
It was the side product from the transesterification process of the cooking oil waste on the synthetic biodiesel. “If it is thrown away, it will create new waste, which is against the initial plan to annihilate waste,” she said in a press statement on Wednesday, 6 January 2021.
The crude glycerol has a low level of purity and economic value. So, to make it valuable it needs conversion to produce several products, which include formic acid, oxalic acid, glyceric acid, 1,2-propanadiol, and lactic acid.
Gardini said that in their research the product was converted into lactic acid. They chose the lactic acid as the result of their conversion because it is massively used in industries.
According to her, the demand for lactic acid is increasing and it is predicted to reach 1.96 million tons in 2025. “Lactic acid is potential to be used as raw material to make plastics of poly lactic acid (PLA) that is easily degradable, and supports the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in protecting the marine and land ecosystems,” she said. (*)
Source: sindonews.com |