Potential of Bagasse as Raw Material for Lignosulfonate Surfactant

Anionic surfactants are generally used in surfactant injections because they are good, resistant in storage and stable. Furthermore, Commercially, anions are produced in the form of carboxylates, sulfates, sulfonates, phosphates, or phosphonates. The surfactants used in the process of implementing Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) are generally petroleum-based, such as Petroleum Sulfonate. Therefore, an increase in oil price, leads to an increase in the price of surfactant and the operational costs becomes relatively expensive. Lignosulfonate is a type of anionic surfactant which is made with lignin as raw material. This lignin is found in many plants, including wood stalks, plant leaves, peanut shells, corn cobs, bagasse, empty bunches of oil palm and wheat straw. Based on the results of previous studies, 25% of lignin component was discovered in bagasse. This may be a consideration that there is enough lignin in bagasse to be used as raw material in the production of lignosulfonate vegetable surfactants. Furthermore, lignin from bagasse is used because bagasse is easy to obtain, cheap and an environmental friendly vegetable waste. Currently, bagasse is only used as fuel in steam boilers and papermaking, cement and brick reinforcement, a source of animal feed, bioethanol, activated charcoal as adsorbent and compost fertilizer. This is a consideration to optimize the use of bagasse to become lignosulfonate as an alternative for surfactants in the petroleum sector. The purpose of this study is to show that lignin from bagasse has the potential of becoming a lignosulfonate surfactant. There are several studies that have processed bagasse into sodium lignosulfonate. The component test on the results showed that the surfactant component of sodium lignosulfonate from bagasse was almost the same as the commercial standard lignosulfonate component. Furthermore, the results of the HLB (Hydrophilic–Lipophilic Balance) value test show that the sodium lignosulfonate surfactant from bagasse can function as an emulsion form which is a required parameter for the surfactant injection mechanism. Based on the discussion of the study results, bagasse has the potential as a raw material to be processed into lignosulfonates.