Sonication Technique on the Manufacturing of Synthetic Zeolites from Bagasse

Abstract

Indonesia has many sugar industries to fulfill the need of sugar consumption on its huge population and all of the sugar industries use sugarcane as raw materials. In the milling process, the side product bagasse will be generated after the sugar solution (molasses) is separated. The amount of bagasse is relatively in huge number,approximately 30% of the sugarcane crushed.The utilization of bagasse unfortunately has not been exploited economically. Since the bagasse has a high silica content, it is enable to be treated to produce synthetic zeolites.There are some methods to produce synthetic zeolites, for example by hydrothermal process, utilizing microwave, or ultrasonication. Sonication technique has been applied to develop the manufacturing of synthetic zeolites. This method utilizing ultrasonication waves with a frequency of about 20 kHz for mixing of aluminate and silicate solutions to form a homogeneous mixture. The sonication technique has a better performance when compared with the hydrothermal technique. The process is simpler and not too much chemical wastes. This technique is also safer compared with microwave technique. The effect of ultrasound has been investigated for various operational conditions, temperature of 60, 70, and 80oC combined with 30, 60, 90 and 120 minutes of sonication. At this step, the characteristics of synthetic zeolites from bagasse sugarcanehas been tested for crystalline structure by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). The next step for characterization will include analyzing of molecular bond using spectroscopic method of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), and also the characterization of surface area by using BET surface area analyzer. The manufacturing process of synthetic zeolites from bagasse by using sonication technique has been successfully produced. The optimum conditions to synthesize zeolites were shown by diffraction curve of zeolite crystalline at higher temperature and longer time of sonication.