Abstract:
Bentonite is a type of adsorbent that used in the bleaching process palm oil to absorb dyes and impurities in the oil. Bleaching power of bentonite can be enhanced by activation of chemically and physically. In this research, bentonite activated chemically is done using 5N H2SO4 and the activation of bentonite physically is heated in the furnace under a temperature of 4000C for 6 hours. This research focused specifically studied the effect of particle size variations and temperature adsorption variations of bentonite were impacted on adsorption power of bentonite with tested by using methylene blue. The adsorption power has been increasing as smaller as the particel size of bentonite(-40 +60 mesh, -60 +80 mesh, -80 +100 mesh). Furthermore, the lower of temperature adsorption (700C, 800C and 900C) affected the adsorption of bentonite is increasing too. The bentonit which treated under those condition is applied in the CPO bleaching process, then the oil is analyzed, such as color, FFA content and peroxide numbers. In the process of bleaching CPO conducted at a temperature of 700C using bentonite activated physically (-80 +100 mesh), has a colour value of 40 on a scale yellow at Lovibond Tintometer, FFA content of 0.11% and the average peroxide number of oil around 3.228 meqH2O2/kg.
