UNS – Students of Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta who participated in National Scientific Writing Competition (LKTIN) Forestime: Young Innovation in Welcoming Golden Indonesia in 2045 successfully achieved the second winner. The competition was held in Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) on September 12-15, 2019.
They are Windi Mulyani from Economic Education Department and Mohamad Abror from Mechanical Engineering Education Department, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education (FKIP) of UNS.
They successfully obtained the runner-up after presenting their scientific paper about the utilization of sugar palm waste to be an alternative fuel that is titled the Manipulation of Utilizing Sugar Palm Waste as Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) Composition Variation of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) to Create Renewable Energy.
Getting questioned about the reason for choosing sugar palm waste, Windi Mulyani explained that the industrial center of the palm starch located at Bendo Village, Klaten sub-district produced its waste prodigiously. Thus, Windi Mulyani and Mohamad Abror tried to manage the waste to be utilized and avoided polluting the people’s surroundings.
“Bendo village is an industrial center of palm starch where there are 174 industries operating. However, the industries also produce waste up to 600 to 700 kg per 25 m3 every day and 50 tons overall,” Windi explained during the interview on Tuesday (9/17/2019).
She added that in processing the palm waste, they also added the plastic compound to the RDF. The mixture is added to increase the heat inside the RDF.
“We as the students initiative utilize the waste. Moreover, we also concerned about the booming of plastic waste in our surroundings. Thus, we tried to mix the plastic compound to the RDF in order to increase the heat of the RDF that we tried,” Windi added.
With this invention, Windi Mulyani and Mohamad Abror planned to register this RDF development to the Student Creativity Program (PKM) in order to be funded more maximally.
“Until this time, RDF is only used through the reactor. However, in the future, we will always try to get solution regarding the gas of RDF to be placed into a tube-like LPG used by the people. Inshallah (if God Wills) we planned to register the PKM with the hope of getting funded,” Windi hoped. Humas UNS/Yefta/Imron
