Edy Purwanto

Postgraduate Student

B.E. (University of Adelaide)

Location: Room N242 Engineering North
Email: edy.purwanto@adelaide.edu.au
Phone: + 61 8 8303 3270
FAX: + 61 8 8303 4373

Supervisors

Dr Yung Ngothai
Assoc Professor Brian O'Neill
Dr Kristen Bremmell

Research Topic

The synthesis of polyol from rice bran oil (RBO) through epoxidation and hydroxylation reactions

Research Abstract

Polyol is a raw material to produce polyurethane that has been widely used in various applications such as bonding agent and rigid or non-rigid foams. Polyol is normally derived from petroleum; hence it is called petroleum-based polyol. As the demand for polyol is increasing and the amount of petroleum is declining, an attempt is needed to find out an alternative raw material to produce polyol. RBO is one alternative raw material that still not explored yet to produce polyol. RBO has unsaturated bonds that can be converted into hydroxyl group so-called polyol. Furthermore, RBO has enormous potential since it is a renewable resource and research is needed to develop its added value by converting the double bonds content in RBO to produce polyol.

Polyol can be produced through epoxidation and hydroxylation reactions. The focus of this study is to obtain the optimum operating condition in the epoxidation and hydroxylation reactions in polyol production. In the epoxidation reaction involves optimizing temperature, reaction period and type of oxygen carrier, whereas in the hydroxylation reaction involves reaction period and temperature.

Vegetable oil particularly rice bran oil (RBO) is an alternative raw material to produce polyol for the next generation since it can lessen the world's reliance on petroleum oil and the limited amount of non-renewable resources can be saved as a heritage for future generations.

Interests

• Renewable resources
• Chemical reaction engineering
• Optimizing process

Recent Publications

• Purwanto, E, Setyopratomo, P, Wicaksono, H & Fransisca, S 2005,' Biodiesel synthesis from palm oil using sodium hydroxide as a base catalyst", in Proceedings of the National Conference on Fundamental and Application on Chemical Enginerring, Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS), Surabaya.
• Purwanto, E, Fatmawati, A, Setyopratomo, P, Junedi & Rosmiati, M 2006,' Influence of epoxidation reaction period and temperature on the quality of polyol synthesized from soybean oil', in Proceedings of the 13th Regional Symposium on Chemical Engineering 2006 - Advanced in Chemical Engineering and Biomolecular Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, pp. 277-279.