To increase the number and improve the quality of knowledge, Universitas Brawijaya once again held a professor inauguration procession. This time, the inaugurated professor was Dr. Eng. Mega Nur Sasongko, ST., MT and Dr. Eng. Widya Wijayanti, ST., MT. Mega is the 302nd Professor and Widya is the 303rd Professor at Universitas Brawijaya.
Dr. Eng. Mega Nur Sasongko, ST., MT and Dr. Eng. Widya Wijayanti, ST., MTa: Technical Test of Used Cooking Oil Biodiesel Dropspray
Global energy demand which continues to increase every year has an impact on the availability of rapidly depleting raw materials. Coupled with greenhouse gas emissions, the use of fossil fuels and the transportation sector also account for the second largest energy demand after industry.
This also happened in Indonesia. According to Mega, both the industrial and transportation sectors are still dominant in energy absorption. The activities of the industrial and motor vehicle sectors which continue to grow provide a significant contribution to the increase in energy demand in these two sectors,” he explained.
Energy policy and planning with a related orientation has become a very important public agenda of most developed and developing countries today, therefore, the government encourages the finding and development of alternative fuels for motorized vehicle fuels.
One of the fuels that can be used as a substitute for fossil fuels is biodiesel. However, biodiesel also has obstacles related to the high cost of raw materials and high production costs, so he highlighted the use of used cooking oil which can be used as raw material for biodiesel while reducing production costs.
“Used cooking oil will reduce the environmental impact due to disposal of used cooking oil which is not utilized and on the other hand will generate economic benefits,” he added.
The innovation produced by Mega is an effort to see the potential of used cooking oil in the Dropspray test. “Basically, the dropspray technical test is a combination of two fuel combustion testing methods in the form of droplet combustion tests and biodiesel spray,” added this UB Mechanical Engineering alumnus.
From the research conducted by Mega, spray diesel flame is still better than used Migor biodiesel. “The interesting thing is, the length of the flame becomes shorter when the oxygen content in the oxidizer is enlarged. The high oxygen concentration in the flame spray speeds up the process of mixing the fuel with the oxidizer to achieve stoichiometric proportions, so that the mixing distance becomes shorter. This condition causes an increase in the speed of combustion resulting in a shorter flame,” explained the lecturer at the Faculty of Engineering.
Seeing this potential, Mega hopes that the community will not dispose of used oil waste indiscriminately and that it will still be useful and beneficial as a raw material for biodiesel fuel for diesel vehicles.
Dr. Eng. Widya Wijayanti, ST., MT. : Conservation of Pyrolysis-Based Energy for Strengthening Non-Fossil Energy Sources
Scientific research innovations in the field of pyrolysis-based energy conversion have been carried out. This innovation is in the form of optimizing the circulating bed pyrolysis design so that the non-fossil fuel conversion process can run more efficiently.
One of the most prospective environmentally friendly technologies for strengthening the national energy supply is pyrolysis. Pyrolysis is an environmentally friendly energy conversion method, which can convert waste or organic compounds into non-fossil fuels through a thermochemical process.
In its implementation, according to Widya, pyrolysis can be used to convert organic waste such as biomass and hard-to-decompose waste such as plastic to produce non-fossil fuels. “The development of this technology has been under construction since 2008 with a focus on research on transport phenomena in the pyrolysis process,” she said. What must be fulfilled in an energy conversion process is the availability of a reactor or device where the process takes place.
“The reactor is the most important factor, so proper design is the way to optimize the reaction. Therefore, we analyze pyrolysis reactors from the perspective of mechanical engineering and chemical engineering. Pyrolysis reactor engineering is an important step to regulate the process from the input of the feedstock to the release of the expected product,” added the lecturer who also teaches at the Faculty of Engineering.
“This innovation is very easy to do. With an abundant amount of feedstcok, this technology has the potential to be applied in landfills. Not only is the fuel obtained similar to the chemical composition of fossil fuels, but physically similar fuel yields have also been obtained. The result of LDPE plastic hydrolysis obtained shows similar properties that are close to the physical properties of fossil fuels, both color, density, viscosity value, flashpoint, heating value, and octane number,” she explained.
She hopes that there will be support from the industry and government for collaboration in the use of this technology. “This technology can be applied to the conversion of modern waste with biomass and plastic raw materials into alternative fuels that have high economic value from a scientific perspective,” she concluded.
Mega and Widya are lecturers at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Brawijaya. Both are the 17th and 18th Professors belonging to the Faculty of Engineering. Both of them officially held the title of Professor after being confirmed by the University Academic Senate on Sunday, 20 November 2022 at Samanta Krida Building, Universitas Brawijaya. (vQ/ Humas UB/ Trans. Iir)
