Activation oF Trass Rock aS Bleaching Palm Oil (CPO)

Abstract

Trass rock is a rock originating from volcanic eruption materials which has experienced weathering. It has the similar composition as bentonite. Therefore, trass rock can also be used as raw material as a bleaching earth to substitute bentonite. In this study, a two-stage process was conducted: to do the activation process of trass rock and stage bleaching process of palm oil (CPO). In activation process, trass rock was performed by using hydrochloric acid, then trass rock was crushed until it could pass of the 200 mesh. After that, the soft rock was weighed and added to the acid solution with the ratio of: 1 : 10 with the concentration of hydrochloric acid solution 5 N and its activation time was 4 hours at the temperature of 105 0 C. Meanwhile, for the bleaching process, at first, oil was treated with degumming and netralization process. Furthermore, oil bleaching process was carried out by adding the activated trass . Then trass was put into the oil when its temperature was reaching up to 186 0 C. Heating was continued until its temperature was reaching up to 198 o C for 45 minutes. In this activation process, it was obtained that the content of SiO2 was 37.8%, Al2O3 of 4.4% and the ratio of SiO2/Al2O3 is 8.6. In the bleaching process of palm oil (CPO), the best condition of trass addition was 4% of the oil weight, and its bleaching time was 45 minutes, the red color intensity obtained was 6.9 and yellow was 6.1, with FFA as big as 2.13% and peroxide value was 5.45 meq/kg.