Hello, Okta from DO-Business & BE-Event team is here :)

My professor just told me that my research has been published earlier this year! As it is my very first publication, it may not be perfect and need a lot of improvement. However, I want to share with you a bit about it in this blog^^

Global warming is one of the most important problems that cause extreme changes in the climate. It has a direct impact on the economy, human health, biodiversity, and ecosystems. However, the impact of global warming can be reduced by utilizing more renewable energy sources including bio-based fuels. Starch, triglycerides, and lignocellulose are the raw materials for making biofuels from biomass. The conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to biofuel as potential sources of transportation fuels, and for being both non-toxic and biodegradable.

The production of chemicals and fuels from lignocellulosic biomass requires pre-treatment and hydrolysis of cellulose and hemicellulose into pentose or hexose sugars, followed by the process of dehydrating sugar into 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF) products. 5-HMF is considered a potential chemical platform in the biofuel, biochemical, and biopolymer industries. Cassava peel is one of the sources of lignocellulose. It is originated from the waste stripping processing of cassava tuber products. The cellulose content in cassava peels is an opportunity to produce bio-based chemical products called 5-hydroxymethylfurfural.

5-Hydroxymethylfurfural

In recent decades, ILs become the spotlight as solvents that help to deconstruct lignocellulosic biomass for the development of upstream processes to become more economical. Recently the use of deep eutectic solvents (DES) in processing lignocellulosic biomass has increased because it is more environmentally friendly than ILs. DES is a mixture of hydrogen bond donors (HBD) and hydrogen bond acceptor (HBA) at temperatures of 60-80 o C. Although DES offers many advantages compared to ILs, DES is still not widely implemented.

Assanosi et al, reported the use of DES as a catalyst and solvent consisting of a mixture of choline chloride and p-toluenesulfonic acid monohydrate (p-TSA) for the reaction of dehydrated fructose to 5-HMF. The best reaction conditions with the highest 5-HMF yield of 90.7% were obtained at 80 °C using DES 1: 1 molar mixing ratio, choline chloride: p-TSA, and feed ratio of 2.5% with 1 hour reaction time*

My research aims to determine the proper condition of glucose dehydration reaction of cassava peels hydrolysis with DES based choline chloride as the solvent to produce 5-HMF. I will continue to write about it more next week as I'm waiting for my bus to Medan now. I'll have 12 hours trip^^

Thank you for reading my blog until the end! Hopefully, it gives you new insights :D

*A.A. Assanosi, M.F. Mohamed, W. Joseph, A.D. Bushra, A Facile Acidic Choline Chloride-PTSA DES-Catalysed Dehydration of Fructose to 5 Hydroxymethylfurfural. RSC Adv. 4 (2014) 39359-39364.