Solketal from Glycerol, Aceton, and Ethanol Solution using Woifram Acid Phosphotungistic Catalyst

¹ Chemical Engineering Department, University of National Development Veteran Yogyakarta
² Chemical Engineering Department, University of National Development Veteran Yogyakarta
³ Chemical Engineering Department, University of National Development Veteran Yogyakarta
⁴ Chemical Engineering Department, University of National Development Veteran Yogyakarta

^* Corresponding author: mahreni@upnyk.ac.id

Abstract

Energy is a need of society and industry which is increasing every year. However, the world's oil reserves continue to run low, so the development of renewable alternative energy is needed. One of the new renewable energies that can be developed is vegetable fuel or biofuel. Biodiesel which is a type of biofuel is being widely produced recently. The cetane number determines the quality of biodiesel. Solketal is an additive added to biodiesel to increase the cetane number. The ketonation reaction was used in this study to obtain the solketal. In the manufacture of solketal a catalyst is needed to speed up the reaction and increase conversion. Phosphotungstic Woifram Acid (PWA) is a heterogeneous catalyst chosen because it can be separated from solution. Based on the results of the study, the optimal time for making solketal was 4 hours and the highest solketal conversion was at a reaction temperature of 60oC with a constant reactant mole ratio of 1:3:1 and a percentage of 2% catalyst, which was 66.7%.