Terpineol, a promising valorisation product of pine industry, is widely used as an active ingredient for disinfectant soap, cleansers, perfumes, and pharmaceutical purposes. Synthesis of terpineol is generally carried out by separation of α-pinene compounds from crude turpentine through fractionation and then hydrated (addition of water) with the help of acid catalysts. However, direct turpentine hydration without pre-fractionation process can be more beneficial from economic and process point of views. This study aims to investigate the effect of both single and mixed/combined catalysts towards terpineol yield. Combined strong and weak acid catalysts were required to obtain high feed conversion and terpineol yield. The selectivity of terpineol is then correlated to the solubility of a weak/organic acid. In this study, the highest yield of terpineol was 54.0 ± 8.2%-w/w using combination of formic acid and sulphuric acid.

Zeolites are microporous crystalline aluminosilicates extensively used as adsorbents, catalysts, and ion exchange beds. The adsorption property of zeolite is expected to be applied as a decolorization agent for terpineol. Terpineol is an alcohol compound derived from turpentine oil and widely used as an active ingredient for disinfectants, cleansers, perfumes, and pharmaceutical purposes. Industrial-scale of terpineol production used two stages of reaction: the first stage is hydration of turpentine into terpin hydrate and the second stage is dehydration of terpin hydrate to terpineol. However, as terpin hydrate is easily oxidized, the product color will change from clear into dark solution and make the price of product cheaper. This study aims to increase terpineol selling price by removing unreacted terpin hydrate (decolorization) from crude terpineol. Zeolite is the main absorbent used in this study along with other similar materials i.e. activated carbon and silica gel. Performances of the adsorbent are indicated by its adsorption capacity and color clarity analysis. The results would be analyzed using GC-MS. Based on the experiment, it can be concluded that the best adsorbent is zeolite activated by acetic acid with 8-15 mg/g adsorption capacity and producing a terpineol purity of 83.5%. This activated zeolite was able to remove terpin hydrate from 9.41% to 0% and other impurities from 14.06% to 6.78%.

Oleic acid, one of the major components of palm oil, has attracted much interest in modern oleochemistry. The internal olefin group in oleic acid is a useful functional group in the transformation of a fatty acid to other functional chemicals and materials. In this paper, we discuss the application of the olefin metathesis reaction by preparing a long-chain dicarboxylic acid and alkene from the ester of oleic acid. The internal olefin metathesis reaction of methyl oleate produced dimethyl 9-oktadecendioate and 9-octadecene in the presence of a ruthenium Grubbs II (second generation) catalyst with a 51% yield. We also found that there was a higher amount of the E isomer products than the Z isomer products.

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The injection of surfactant is potential to be lost during the process due to the adsorption of surfactant into the core. It is therefore crucial to analyzed the concentration of surfactant before and after injection to the core. Many methods are developed for determining the content of surfactant using UV-Vis Spectrophotometer by utilizing the chromophore group of the chemical. In this study, quantification of nonionic surfactant that absent of chromophore group was performed using a combination of mobile Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) with Solid Phase Extraction (SPE). SPE was used to extract the samples that dissolved in water, whereas NMR was used to identify the levels of nonionic surfactants that dissolved in deuterized solvents. Internal standard chemical was added to the sample to verify the concentration of samples. As a stationary phase was SPE C-18 and eluent was methanol, ethyl acetate, and n-hexane. Furthermore, the SPE results were measured using mobile 1H NMR 43 MHz with selected solvents namely deuterated chloroform (CDCl3) and internal standard Dimethyl Formamide (DMF). Optimization results for determination of surfactant concentration up to 0.5% w/w was using the C-18 stationary phase, mobile phase methanol, ethyl acetate, and n-hexane.