The processing of fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) from waste cooking palm oil using coconut coir dust ash catalyst

Waste cooking palm oil (WCO) has the potential to be used as Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (FAME) or bioenergy due to its being environmentally friendly, inexpensive, and reduces household waste. Generally, the catalyst used in biodiesel is a chemical catalyst like KOH. This research aimed to obtain FAME processing techniques with natural catalysts such as coconut coir dust because contains high potassium. The research was conducted in March–December 2021 at the Indonesian Palm Crops Research Institute (IPCRI) Laboratory. Pre-treatment for the purification of WCO using adsorbent 1) coconut shell charcoal, 2) coconut husk charcoal, and 3) zeolite, while the second factor is the size of the adsorbent 35 and 115 mesh. The result of pre-treatment obtained shell charcoal with mesh size 115 was good absorbent because it reduced the water content and free fatty acid became 0.06% and 0.75%, respectively. The treatment consisted of two factors: type (KOH and coconut coir dust ash) and concentration of catalyst. The concentration of catalyst is 1% KOH (control), coir dust ash isolated potassium with distilled water in a ratio (1:1) and (1:2). Coir dust obtained an ash content of 15.15% and a potassium content of 15.06%. Transesterification reaction using catalyst (1:1) conversion of 84% yield and 99.91% total FAME content. Catalyst ratio (1:2) obtained 84% yield, total FAME content of 99.85%, and compared to control. The total FAME minimum requirement of 96.5% in accordance SNI 04-7182-2015 standards.