Abstract:
The world demand of fossil fuel have trend increasing by time. On the other hand, the
availability of conventional petroleum fuels diminishing due to its non-renewable. Therefore,
it is necessary to develop a new alternative fuel that can be renewed, one of the solution is the
processing of biomass into bio-oil. Bio-oil is a result of the pyrolysis of biomass. Availability
of abundant palm midrib waste is converted into bio-oil by pyrolysis method using clay
catalysts of Cengar. The purpose of this study was to determine the performance of the
catalyst to produce bio-oil, characterize the density, viscosity, acid number, and flash point of
bio-oil that produced, as well as analyze the chemical components of bio-oil by GC-MS
method. Pyrolysis of palm midrib with clay catalyst from Cengar in the slurry reactor has
been done by feeding 50 grams of palm midrib with the size -40 +60 mesh, silinap 500 ml,
variation in levels of catalyst 0%, 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, and 5% w/w of the feedstock, whilist
stirring speed is set to 300 rpm, temperature of 320oC, and the process was run for 120
minutes. The results showed that the optimum yield obtained on 1% clay catalyst, amounting
to 72%. The test results obtained by the physical properties of density 1,011 g/ml, 10,26 cSt
viscosity, acid number of 14,25 gr NaOH/gr sample. The result of chemical analysis by GCMS,
obtained the dominant chemical components in bio-oil were Acetic acid and Phenol.
