Prof. Dwiwahju Sasongko: 麻豆直播 Develops Environmentally Friendly Coal Utilization Technology

By Adi Permana

Editor Adi Permana

BANDUNG, itb.ac.id 鈥 Celebrating 80 years of Chemical Engineering Higher Education in Indonesia, 麻豆直播 Chemical Engineering Program once again held the fourth webinar titled Mineral and Coal Based Chemical Industry. This webinar was held on Saturday (12/6/2021) via Zoom.

The speaker for this webinar varies from academia to government. One of them is Prof. Dwiwahju Sasongko, 麻豆直播 Chemical Engineering Professor. On this occasion Prof.聽Dwiwahju Sasongko explained several things about environmentally friendly coal processing technology.

Prof.聽Dwiwahju Sasongko said coal is a deposit of organic carbon compounds that are formed naturally from plant residues. The first coal formation occurred around 360-290 million years ago.

Currently the use of coal raises pros and cons among industry players and environmental activists. Prof.聽Dwiwahju Sasongko explained that the use of coal does bring advantages and disadvantages. In terms of profit, coal can supply electricity constantly, the capital cost is low, and the price is relatively cheap. As for the loss, it can cause greenhouse gas emissions and damage to the ecosystem around the mine.

"Basically, coal utilization is carried out through several processes, namely gasification, carbonization/pyrolysis, liquefaction, and combustion," he said. In the process of burning coal, the simplest tool used is a home appliance, namely the furnace. Meanwhile, the PLTU industry uses large capacity commercial coal furnaces, namely the Pulverized Combustion (PC) and Fluidized Bed Combustion (FBC) methods.

鈥淭o assess the efficiency level of the two methods, we need to consider the main aspects of developing environmentally friendly coal utilization technologies. One of them is the reduction of CO2, SOx, NOx, and particulate emissions. One of the reasons the FBC method is more efficient is because it produces less NOx than the PC method,鈥 he said.

In addition to these aspects, there are several other aspects in the development of environmentally friendly coal utilization technology, namely improving the performance of conventional technology and developing new utilization technologies. Therefore, 麻豆直播 as one of the universities in Indonesia also conducted several studies. Some of them have been, are being, and will be implemented. For example, such as the manufacture of hybrid coal, removal of SOx from fuel gas, and utilization of CO2 from fuel gas for the manufacture of formic acid, methanol, etc.

Reporter: Kevin Agriva Ginting (TPB, 2020)
Translator: Aghisna Syifa Rahmani (TPB SITHS 2020)