Prof. Dr. Ir. Bambang Dwi Argo, DEA. lecturer of the Department of Biosystems Engineering Faculty of Agricultural Technology was officially confirmed as a professor of bioenergy in the open session of the Academic Senate of Universitas Brawijaya, Saturday (22/07/2023) at Samantha Krida building Universitas Brawijaya.

Carrying the theme “Semi-continuous supercritical reactor innovation for biodiesel production, as an effort to meet national energy needs, Prof. Bambang Dwi Argo explained his innovation on the utilization of non-food biomass into a new and renewable energy source.

Research development includes two aspects, namely aspects of conversion technology innovation and aspects of process technology that play a role in transforming non-food biomass materials into new and renewable energy sources while still meeting technical specifications and affordable economic value.

Currently gasoline and diesel oil from fossil materials are the most widely used types of fuel because they are in accordance with the specifications of existing engine needs. However, its availability is very limited and relatively unfriendly to the environment because it contributes a lot of Co and CO2 exhaust gases . The idea of replacing both fuels with new and renewable energy is an inevitability to be realized. Bioethanol and biodiesel are two types of new and renewable fuels produced from the conversion of biomass materials, especially non-food biomass.

Prof. Bambang Dwi Argo made use of plant oil or animal oil (triglycerides) as a base material to produce biodiesel without using catalysts. Plant or animal oils such as: extracts from castor bean, kapok, nyamplong, micro algae or from fish fat have been studied and successfully converted into biodiesel. The conversion technology that has been applied in this study is a batch type supercritical reactor technology that operates at a temperature and pressure of 300 atm and 2750C respectively to produce biodiesel without using catalysts from non-food plant oils. Conversion technology research includes two things, namely a). design and manufacture of supercritical reactors, b). trials of biodiesel production using supercritical reactors without using catalysts with various comparisons of mixtures between plant oils and alcohols

Not only succeeded in obtaining patent Patent no: IDP000038978, the design of batch type supercritical reactor that has been successfully designed and realized with specifications: maximum pressure reaches 1000 atm, temperature reaches 300oc, reactor volume 1000 ml, ss-316 material and safety factor >3 it is also possible to change the Working Mechanism of Batch type supercritical reactor into Semi-continuous type supercritical reactor at once so as to avoid excessive use of process energy.

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