commercial full-strength liquid smoke to be
composed of water (11–92%), tar (1–17%), acids
(2.8–9.5%), carbonyl containing compounds (2.6–
4.6%) and phenol derivatives (0.2–2.9%) (Baltes et
al., 1981). Further treatment is needed to reduce
levels of toxic compounds, eliminate tar, increase
liquid smoke yield and its quality.
The general method used in removing tar from
liquid smoke is redestilation. Redestilation is the
process of purifying liquid smoke based on
differences in the boiling point of liquid smoke.
There have been many studies doing liquid smoke
redestilation (Darmadji, 2002; Budaraga et al., 2016;
Ketut Budaraga et al., 2016). At present, the method
offered in removing tar is wet scrubber because it is
simple, economical and high efficiency. Some
studies use this method for removing tar in syngas.
The objective of this study was to determine
important chemical characteristics of a full-strength
liquid smoke from tar scrubber. The chemical
volatile and semi-volatile constituents of these
product were identified using gas chromatography-
mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. pH, acidity,
density were also determined.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
2.1 Materials
Raw material used in this study was coconut shell
from coconut shell charcoal industry, Johor, Medan,
Indonesia.
2.2 Equipment
In this study, the equipment used were a set of
pyrolysis tar scrubber reactor, pH meter,
pycnometer, analytical balance, Karl Fischer
coulometric titrator and GC-MS.
2.3 Liquid Smoke Production
Production of liquid smoke was done by pyrolysis.
The pyrolysis reactor was equipped with a tar
scrubber which could be charged with as much as
500 kg of material. The reactor cover was connected
by a pipeline to the cooling tubes used to condense
the fumes and generate the liquid smoke. After all
materials were inserted into the furnace, it was
closed, the condenser was set, and the cooling tube
was streamed with cold water. Pyrolysis was carried
out at a temperature 500°C for 8 hours.
2.4 Characterization
Acidity of liquid smoke was characterized by pH
meter, water content by using volumetric Karl
Fischer titration, the density by AOC 1995, and
dichloromethane extracts content by gas
chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Liquid Smoke Chemical
Components
Liquid smoke compositions are obtained from
pyrolysis of coconut shell. The traditional liquid
smoke manufacturing saw dust pyrolyzed in
temperature ranges of 350-600
o
C and under
atmospheric pressure conditions. In this research, the
liquid smoke was obtained from thermal
degradation reactions of cellulose, hemicellulose,
and lignin. From a proximate components
standpoint, the three major components of coconut
shell are cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin . The
pyrolysis of lignin was reported at around 310-500
o
C and yielded the major source of phenols
(Martinez et al., 2007). In the other research, the
hemicellulose yielded furan, furan derivatives, and a
series of aliphatic carboxylic acids (Siskos et al.,
2007).
The quality of liquid smoke is very dependent on
the composition of chemical compounds contained
in liquid smoke. The compounds contained in liquid
smoke are strongly influenced by the conditions of
pyrolysis and types of raw materials (Budaraga et
al., 2016). This is due to the large levels of cellulose
and hemicellulose from each ingredient. Cellulose
pyrolysis takes place in two stages, namely the first
stage is an acid hydrolysis reaction followed by
dehydration to produce glucose, while the second
stage is the formation of acetic acid and homologous
together with water and a small amount of furan and
phenol (Collard and Blin, 2014).
Identification of phenol and carbonyl were detected
gas chromatography-mass spectrometer in
dichloromethane fractions. Results were shown on
Table 1 in which phenol ranged from 85.057 –
90.024% while carbonyl from 5.05 – 6.473%. This
shown that there were an increase in the chemical
components produced by pyrolysis tar scrubber.
Quality Improvement of Liquid Smoke of Coconut Shell by Tar Scrubber
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