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Methanol is a promising new alternative fuel that emits significantly less carbon dioxide than gasoline. Traditionally, methanol was produced through natural gas or coal gasification via syngas intermediate that has a high carbon footprint. In order to reduce its carbon footprint, alternative methanol production processes including direct production pathways through methane partial oxidation reactions have been intensively investigated in recent years. The purpose of this study is to synthesize ZSM-5 zeolite from coal fly ash and rice husk ash and measure its efficacy in catalyzing the direct conversion of methane to methanol via partial oxidation reaction. In this experiment, the zeolite was produced using the following molar ratio: 12 NaOH : 30SiO2 : 0.75 Al2O3 : 1800 H2O. XRD, BET, and SEM - EDX analysis were used to analyze the zeolite structure of ZSM-5, and the results revealed that ZSM-5 zeolite was successfully synthesized from coal fly ash and rice husk ash. The catalytic activity performance of the ZSM-5 zeolite was tested in a batch reactor at 423 K and an initial methane pressure of 4 bar with 1 gram of catalyst (zeolite) for 1 hour to carry out the methane to methanol conversion reaction. The catalytic activity of the synthesized ZSM-5 zeolite was compared to that of a commercial ZSM-5 zeolite for performance comparison. Additionally, a control reaction involving the same reaction was conducted without the use of a catalyst. This study found that synthesized ZSM-5 zeolite had a reaction yield of 10.04% while commercial ZSM-5 zeolite had a yield of 2.60%. These findings suggest that the ZSM-5 zeolite made from coal fly ash and rice husk ash has the potential to be used in the methane to methanol conversion process via partial oxidation reaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of hydraulic retention time (HRT) on treating domestic wastewater of Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) was investigated in the pilot plant bio-continuous stirred tank reactor (Bio-CSTR) 1 m3. The bio-CSTR was operated at mesophilic condition and under two HRT conditions (33.3 days and 100 days) aimed to evaluate biogas productivity and operational stability. The pilot plant system was started with cow manure in the beginning, and its combination of POME, cow manure, and urea-DAP as micro nutrition in the first week. Afterward feeding of fresh POME was set between pH 5.4 and 5.5 by mixed it with overflow and further adjusted it with commercial ash soda. The performance observation shows that at shorter HRT, the organic compound was not consumed optimally. This was indicated by low pH 5.1 at the bio CSTR system and the amount biogas produced reached 54.3 L. In addition, it was needed more amount of ash soda to adjust the feeding. Setting by extending the HRT was gradually increased the pH so that needed less ash soda to adjust the pH. The biogas produced was increased 11.3 times higher than that of biogas at short HRT. The effectiveness of POME usage was got by the more organic compound was decomposed that indicated by lower COD analyzed at overflow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of hydraulic retention time (HRT) on treating domestic wastewater of Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) was investigated in the pilot plant bio-continuous stirred tank reactor (Bio-CSTR) 1 m3. The bio-CSTR was operated at mesophilic condition and under two HRT conditions (33.3 days and 100 days) aimed to evaluate biogas productivity and operational stability. The pilot plant system was started with cow manure in the beginning, and its combination of POME, cow manure, and urea-DAP as micro nutrition in the first week. Afterward feeding of fresh POME was set between pH 5.4 and 5.5 by mixed it with overflow and further adjusted it with commercial ash soda. The performance observation shows that at shorter HRT, the organic compound was not consumed optimally. This was indicated by low pH 5.1 at the bio CSTR system and the amount biogas produced reached 54.3 L. In addition, it was needed more amount of ash soda to adjust the feeding. Setting by extending the HRT was gradually increased the pH so that needed less ash soda to adjust the pH. The biogas produced was increased 11.3 times higher than that of biogas at short HRT. The effectiveness of POME usage was got by the more organic compound was decomposed that indicated by lower COD analyzed at overflow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]