VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Energy availability, affordable energy access, or food security are among the problems faced by the world community, including Indonesia. For example fuel oil, gas and electricity availability.The depletion of petroleum sources as energy materials encourages various parties to seek alternative energy. As is known, the need for electricity in Indonesia is increasing every year. It is estimated that petroleum reserves without new exploitation can only last for the next 21 years. Therefore, alternative energy innovations are needed to overcome the problem of limited oil.Students of the Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS) Surabaya, innovate processing sugarcane drops into electrical energy. Three students from the ITS Chemical Engineering Department, namely Martiana Nugraeny, Tri Wahyuning Eka Purnama Sari, and Chandra Adiwijaya, made renewable energy from molasses waste and heavy metal waste. Molasses are a by-product of the sugar cane industry which still contains sugar and organic acids. In Indonesia known as sugar cane drops. Tri Wahyuning Eka Purnama Sari explained, the utilization of molasses waste in Indonesia is still very lacking. Each hectare of sugar cane land can produce 10-15 tons of molasses. Waste from processed sugar cane has high cellulose content which is a source of renewable biomass. The Directorate General of Agriculture estimates the area of ​​sugar cane in Indonesia in 2016 to reach 482,239 hectares (ha). If utilized this can be one of the renewable energy sources.Tri Wahyuning also explained about the dangers of toxic and hazardous waste (B3) such as chrome. Heavy metal chrome is often found in the environment due to the use of chemicals in industry. Chrom is a B3 waste with high toxicity that can endanger human health. Departing from these two problems, Tri and his colleagues offered an innovative idea of ​​MFCs as a continuous recirculation system as a solution. MFCs are biology-based fuel cells that convert chemical energy into electrical energy with the help of catalytic reactions of microorganisms. The technology used is using waste molasses and heavy metal waste as alternative energy sources. These MFCs consist of two chamber tubes, namely anode and cathode. In the anode chamber, it is filled with waste molasses and bacteria, while in the chamber the cathode is filled with heavy metal waste Cr6 (hexavalent chromium). He explained, the metabolism that occurs in the anode chamber will produce electricity. In addition to generating electricity, these MFCs can also reduce Cr (VI) metal waste and reduce the value of BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) on molasses waste.