Agung Kurnia Yahya, Enny Nurmalasari, Apsari Puspita Aini, Miftahul Khairati, Seoyeon Jung, Zuhriyan Ash Shiddieqy Bahlawan, Megawati, Ria Desiriani, Achmad Yanuar Maulana, Jongsik Kim
The palm oil industry faces growing challenges in balancing product quality, resource efficiency, and environmental sustainability. Conventional bleaching earth (BE), widely used to purify crude palm oil (CPO), often requires high dosages, shows limited adsorption efficiency, and generates large amounts of spent bleaching earth (SBE) waste that is difficult to manage. To overcome these limitations, this study explores the enhancement of BE with nanosilica (nano SiO2) to create an improved bleaching agent. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was applied to evaluate the influence of BE concentration, temperature, and contact time on β-carotene removal and color improvement. Compared to commercial BE, the nano SiO2-BE composite exhibited significantly higher bleaching performance and product clarity. The optimal conditions were identified at 1 % BE concentration, 70 °C, and 90 min of contact time, under which the β-carotene content was reduced to 408.18 mg/L, and the color quality exceeded industrial benchmarks. The quadratic regression models demonstrated strong predictive power, with R² values above 0.965 for both response variables. BET analysis revealed a nearly twofold increase in surface area, and EDS confirmed effective silica incorporation. These structural improvements contributed to greater active site accessibility and adsorption efficiency. Overall, this study highlights nano SiO2-BE as a cost-effective and eco-friendly alternative for industrial CPO bleaching, offering enhanced resource utilization, reduced waste generation, and alignment with sustainability goals. © 2025
Department of Chemical Engineering, Politeknik ATI Padang, Padang, 25171, Indonesia; Department of Chemical Engineering (BK21 FOUR Graduate Program), Dong-A University, Busan, 49315, South Korea; Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia; Research Center of Nanotechnology Systems, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), South Tangerang, 15314, Indonesia; Department of Chemistry, Dong-A University, Busan, 49315, South Korea
