Muhaimin Iqbal
Author

Local LPG, A Non-Petroleum LPG

Advanced Renewable

Wed , 13 Mar 2024 17:22 WIB

The most popular household fuel in the world is LPG, so for the past two decades the residents of this archipelago nation have also been 'addicted' to LPG. The problem is that the majority of LPG is not a domestic product, around 80% of it still has to be imported in the form of propane and butane as raw materials of LPG.

Apart from having to be heavily subsidized, the impact of imported LPG consumption is also a factor in impoverishing this country, because for every cent of foreign exchange we use to pay for imported products, our GDP is reduced by that amount. Is it possible for LPG to be produced entirely domestically?

As long as LPG is an abbreviation for Liquid Petroleum Gas, there is very little chance that it can be completely produced domestically - because we still import the petroleum or oil as well. But if we want to get away from oil, and change our LPG to LPG which returns to its natural state, namely the P is replaced with propane, then this propane is very likely to be produced domestically.

So we change the abbreviation LPG to Liquid Propane Gas, which is still LPG too. The next question is what material will we produce this new LPG from? and how will it be produced?

Propane can be produced from abundant carbon sources which are still a problem in almost all of cities in this country, namely rubbish and waste. Science and technologies for this have also been around for three centuries, starting from Water Gas (WG) and Water Gas Shift (WGS), Invention by Italian scientist Felice Fontana from the 18th century. With the WG and WGS reactions, we can produce propane raw materials from carbon sources, from anything, it could be rubbish, waste and even CO2 emissions.

Then, after the raw material in the form of good syngas is obtained, namely syngas with a ratio of H2/CO>2, any fuel can be made from this syngas. Including to produce propane which is the main component of LPG. The technology was discovered by 20th century scientists, namely Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch, which became known as Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis (FTS). And this FTS is currently used in a number of countries for fuel and chemical production.

However, because the sources from which we will process rubbish and waste are spread throughout the country, it is not economical to transport rubbish and waste to centralized processing, so the processing units must be made on a small scale, mini or even micro plant - which can present wherever biomass or waste centers exist.

The image below is our design for an LPG Micro Plant with biomass as raw material from rubbish and waste. This micro plant can be made for every city or even sub-district, so that LPG, which has become our basic need, can be met by local sources.

Apart from improving energy security, reducing the carbon footprint, it will definitely also prospering the local community because it will be a driver of local economic growth!