The Effects of Hydrolysis Temperature and Catalyst Concentration on Bio-ethanol Production from Banana Weevil

Abstract

An energy need of petroleum fuels in various countries in the world in recent years has increased sharply. It doesn’t only happen in the developed countries but also in developing countries, including Indonesia. Scientists have a develop a renewable energy source to anticipate the crisis of petroleum fuels. Several types of renewable energy are biomass, geothermal, solar energy, water energy, wind energy, and ocean energy. Ethanol is a bio-fuel, and has good prospects as a substitute for liquid fuel and gasohol with renewable raw materials and environmentally friendly. Four steps are applied in this study. The first is preparation of tools and raw materials. All instruments were sterilized and banana weevil as raw material is cut and grind. The second is hydrolysis process, which HCl is used as catalyst. in the process,temperature are varied at 70 °C, 80 °C, 90 °C, and concentration of catalyst are 0.1; 0.2; and 0.3 N. The third step is fermentation, which is conducted at the ambient temperature (27 °C) and anaerobic conditions. The last is distillation process. The results show the greater hydrolysis temperature, the concentration and the yield of produced bio-ethanol greater. The hydrolysis process of HCl 0.3 N at 90 °C, resulted in the greatest level of bio-ethanol, which is 61.20%. This research should be developed, especially for the purification process on order to obtain higher ethanol concentration.