The Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Brawijaya (FTUB) got two new professors; Prof. Dr. Eng. Mega Nur Sasongko, S.T., M.T., and Prof. Dr. Eng. Widya Wijayanti, S.T., M.T. Both were inaugurated on Sunday, November 20, 2022, at the Samantha Krida UB Building.

At Brawijaya University Prof. Mega became the 302nd professor while Prof. Widya becomes the 303rd professor, and the two Mechanical Engineering lecturers are the 17th and 18th professors owned by the UB Faculty of Engineering.

Uniquely, the two lecturers in Mechanical Engineering are a husband and wife who have always been together while pursuing their undergraduate, masters, and doctoral studies in Japan.

In her scientific oration, Prof. Mega delivered her scientific article entitled ‘Technical Test of Dropspray Biodedel Used Cooking Oil’.

Mega said that global energy demand which continues to increase every year has an impact on the availability of raw materials which is rapidly depleting.

Coupled with greenhouse gas emissions, the use of fossil fuels and the transportation sector also account for the second largest energy demand after industry.

Therefore, the government encourages the search for and development of alternative fuels for motorized vehicles.

One of the fuels that can be used as a substitute for fossil fuels is biodiesel.

However, biodiesel also has problems related to the high cost of raw materials and high production costs.

Until he highlighted the use of used cooking oil which can be used as raw material for biodiesel while reducing production costs.

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,” explained the alumni of YAmaguchi University Japan.

From research conducted by Mega, spray diesel flame is still better than used Migor biodiesel.

Interestingly, the flame length becomes shorter when the oxygen content in the oxidizing agent is increased.

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.

Meanwhile, his wife presented her scientific article entitled ‘Conservation of Pyrolysis-Based Energy for Strengthening Non-Fossil Energy Sources’.

Widya admitted that scientific research innovations in the field of pyrolysis-based energy conversion had been carried out.

This innovation is in the form of optimizing the circulating bed pyrolyser 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.

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.

“For this reason, we analyze pyrolysis reactors from a mechanical engineering and chemical engineering perspective.

Pyrolysis reactor engineering is an important step to regulate the process starting from the input of the feedstock to the release of the expected product,” he explained.

He admits that 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 LDPE plastic pyrolysis results obtained showed similar properties close to the physical properties of fossil fuels, both color, density, viscosity value, flashpoint, calorific value, and octane number, he explained.

He 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,” he concluded. (HumasFT)