ABSTRACT

At the manufacturing process of biodiesel from palm oil, glycerol as byproduct was
obtained at the purity level of 40-50%. In this purity level, residual impurities such as
methanol, catalyst, fatty acid, water, phosphoric acid and other impurities were found. To
increase the selling value and applicable to various products, it is necessary to intensify the
handling in order to remove the existence of these impurities.Currently research has been
conducted to purify the glycerol of palm oil; yet, the process of glycerol purification is still
needed to increase the purity level to reach above 95%. Glycerol with 95% of purity level are
more widely used in industry. One of glycerol application is as material indrilling fluid Water
Based Mud (WBM) for oil well drilling. The purpose of this research to achieve the best
processing conditions in producing glycerol with purity level of over 95% by using 25 liter
vacuum distillation scale. The process were carried out in two variations of pressure which
were 10 inHg and 5 inHg combined with 3 variations in temperature of 100C, 115C and
130C for the period of 2 hours. The best processing conditions was shown while using 5
inHg pressure at 130C. This process produced glycerol at the purity level of 97.03%, 107
ppm ofwater content,1.78%,% of ash content, 1.17% of MONG content, 6,28 of pH value,
252.6 cSt of kinematic viscosity (40), 1.2658 gr/cm3 of density, 190.3C of flash point,
-28.5C of pour point and 126.5C boilling point.
Keywords: glycerol, crude glycerol, glycerol purification, glycerol residue