TUGAS REMIDI DAN PERBAIKAN NILAI UAS KIMIA KELAS XI DAN XII 2016-2017

Ajinomoto Adopts Eco-Friendly Recycling Method for Bottled Coffee

Copyright Ajinomoto General Foods, Inc.

Ajinomoto General Foods, Inc. (AGF), a major Japanese manufacturer of food and beverage products, announced on November 21, 2011, that it would introduce polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles recycled from used PET bottles utilizing what it calls a "PET bottle-to-PET bottle" recycling method. AGF started gradual introduction of the plastic bottles nicknamed "Friendly Bottles" for all of the main Blendy bottled coffee products in February 2012.
About 90 percent of used PET bottles were recycled to low-quality materials such as egg boxes and trays for food. However, the new method, the world's only chemical recycling technology, will make it possible to chemically dissolve used PET bottles into PET material, refine the material into PET resin, and produce PET bottles of identical quality to new ones that are from petroleum-derived materials.
With this technology, the use of oil-based PET raw materials will be reduced by about 60 percent annually. Additionally, the energy impact assessed by the *Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) method will decrease by about 20 percent annually compared to conventional PET bottles, thereby positively contributing to recycling-oriented society.
*LCI analysis is a technique to quantitatively compile, evaluate and interpret environmental impacts associated with all the stages of a product's life from manufacture to use and disposal.
Suntory Completes Japanese Industry's First B-to-B Recycling System for PET Bottles (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/031145.html
Coca-Cola Japan to Introduce Sugarcane-based PET Bottles for Its Beverages (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/029801.html
Posted: 2012/04/28 06:00:15 AM

Rise in Awareness of Electricity Conservation, Home Solar Power Systems Seen after Earthquake in Japan

Image by okadots. Some Rights Reserved.


Housing Company, part of the Sekisui Chemical Group, released on August 18, 2011, the results of its post-disaster survey targeting owners of photovoltaic (PV) power generation systems. In the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake in March, having encountered power supply failures and rolling blackouts in many areas, respondents showed that they had greater awareness the capacity of their PV systems to provide a supply of electricity for their own use on fine weather days. (The systems are normally set to provide power directly to the power grid instead of for the owner's own use.)

According to the survey, 80 percent of respondents "knew how to use a PV system in the stand-alone mode," while those who actually switched to this mode accounted for 67 percent in quake-hit areas and 33 percent in areas hits by rolling blackouts. Among those who used the stand-alone mode, the majority (86%) said used the power to charge mobile phones, followed by rice cookers (51%), and televisions (40%). Some also reported that sharing electricity with neighbors contributed to better neighbourly relations.

Meanwhile, the Group's Housing Environment Institute released on August 22, 2011, the results of its survey on awareness and electricity conservation behavior of PV users after the earthquake. The results show that more people were eager to save electricity afterwards compared to the same survey conducted before the quake, in January 2011.

The survey also showed (1) that people tended to more actively try to save electricity after the earthquake; (2) that compared with the general population, PV users reported having lower stress about power-saving efforts and saved most power at peak power consumption times of the day; (3) that interest in PVs has been increasing, especially in eastern Japan; and (4) that interest in storage batteries and learning life skills for power-saving have been boosted.

Sekisui Chemical Achieves Record with Home Photovoltaic Installations (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/026771.html

MENYONGSONG UN 2011/2012

Rabu, 21 Desember 2011

Selamat datang UN 2011/2012. Marilah kita songsong dan kita siapkan sedini mungkin dan seoptimal dan semaksimal mungkin, baik secara materi, fisik, mental maupun strategis.

Ujian Nasional (UN) SMA tahun pelajaran 2011/2012 akan diselenggarakan besok tanggal 16 s.d. 19 Aril 2011.

Untuk menyongsong UN tersebut, BSNP telah menerbitkan dokumen-dokumen penting yang berhubungan dengan UN tersebut. Anda semua dapat men-download dokumen tersebut di bawah ini :

1. Permendikbud  No. 59 Tahun 2011 tentang UN
2. POS UN tahun 2011/2012
3. SK-BSNP tentang Kisi-kisi UN 2011/2012
4. Presentasi Sosialisasi UN 2011/2012
5. Tanya Jawab Seputar UN 2011/2012
Semoga bermanfaat

New Way to Convert CO2 into Methanol

Scientists are continuously working on to find an alternative to fossil fuels. We are familiar with the side effects of fossil fuels and its impact on environment. Right now the fossil fuels seem to be necessary evil we can’t do without. Scientists want alternative fuels that have none of the ill effects of traditional fuels.

For a long time researchers are eying the carbon dioxide as an alternative fuel. Because carbon dioxide emanation is a hotly-debated global issue. This gas is held responsible for greenhouse effect that in turn is causing irreversible climate change. Human beings are responsible for carbon dioxide emissions. This gas is produced when we use fossil fuels. This is not the exact figure but carbon dioxide’s amount is increasing in earth’s atmosphere by more than 30% since the industrial revolution. According to estimates of The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) the world requires to reduce the global carbon dioxide by 60% in order to stabilize it at present-day levels.

Scientific researches are focusing on solutions that reduce global warming. Presently there is one popular term known as “green chemistry” which aims at minimizing or altogether eliminating the use of hazardous substances to prevent environmental pollution. Scientists at the Singapore-based Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) are striving to make the mass production of methanol more cost-effective. This will result in reducing the amount of carbon dioxide released in the earth’s atmosphere. Scientists at the Singapore-based Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) have achieved an unparalleled feat by transforming carbon dioxide into methanol. Methanol is a widely used form of industrial feedstock and clean-burning biofuel.

Their main achievement was using “organocatalysts” and making the whole process non-toxic to produce the more useful chemical compound. Professor Jackie Y. Ying who is IBN executive director of the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology shares his views, “We are innovating effective methods of generating clean energy using green chemistry and nanotechnology. In the face of environmental pollution, global warming and increasing demands on diminishing fossil fuel resources, we hope to provide a viable alternative energy option for industry, and effective sequestration and conversion of carbon dioxide.”

At the IBN, scientists successfully made carbon dioxide react with a stable organocatalyst called N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC). This reaction took place under mild conditions in dry air. Siti Nurhanna Riduan who is the senior lab officer at IBN explained about the experiment, “NHCs have shown tremendous potential for activating and fixing carbon dioxide. Our work can contribute towards transforming excess carbon dioxide in the environment into useful products, such as methanol.”

Further they used a combination of silica and hydrogen known as hydrosilane. Hydrosilane is added to the NHC-activated carbon dioxide, which is converted into methanol through hydrolysis. Dr Yugen Zhang who is the IBN team leader and principal research scientist elaborates about the intricacies of the chemical reaction, “Hydrosilane provides hydrogen, which bonds with carbon dioxide in a reduction reaction. This carbon dioxide reduction is efficiently catalyzed by NHCs even at room temperature. Methanol can be easily obtained from the product of the carbon dioxide reaction.”

A New Leading Process For CO2 to Methanol

Mitsui Chemical Inc. of Japan has decided to begin construction of a pilot plant for continued development of producing methanol from industrial CO2 effluent and photocatalyst produced hydrogen. Due to build starting in October of 2008 with completion next February the plant is expected to go into use in March of 2010, the plant’s annual yield would work out to be the U.S. equivalent of over 33,000 gallons.

The construction will be at the company’s Osaka facilities where some 150 to 160 tons of CO2 can be obtained. The new plant is based on the cooperative work of Mitsui and the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth in Kyoto Japan. Mitsui has a nearly ten-year investment in the effort during the 1990s from which it is bringing a single unit photoelectrocatalyst hydrogen production technology. This process uses a highly efficient thin film, anatase titania photocatalyst that has a photon to current quantum efficiency of 60%. The yield of 220,000 pounds of methanol would need approximately 22% hydrogen by weight, some 48,400 pounds. Where the solar array will be installed isn’t discussed.


Mitsui Methanol Process Illustration

The CO2 side is from the Mitsui complex’s own process waste stream. The company makes the case that the cause of the research and investment is in mediation of CO2 emissions. It is a fully credible claim, yet the rise in petrochemical prices has to have a role in making the pilot investment worthwhile. The CO2 process is also based in results form the Research Institute’s “Chemical CO2 Immobilization Project.” Here Mitsui participated and took the research further with proprietary ultra high activity catalysts. This base research was in zinc oxide and copper catalysts that are upgraded to yield 44% efficiency for methane and 24% for ethylene from 82% of the carbon dioxide feed. This published rate does not deactivate the catalysts when operating in a pulsed bias.

The dollar investment is published at US$13.7 million or only $62.28 per annual gallon of capital cost. Without an operating expense it isn’t known how viable this venture might be, but the graph above notes that the output will be directed to valued added processes to yield things like olefins and aromatics.

The vague area is in the costs to sequester the CO2 and the use of the excess oxygen. It seems sensible that the unused 18% CO2 from the process would loop back in. The oxygen has value in O2 form and it’s a sure thing it won’t be vented as ozone.

Pilot plants are the first level scale up from the lab bench stage to check the real world practice and costs before trying an industrial sized plant. It’s quite interesting to see a number like less than $63.00 of capital costs even before the running expenses are factored in. What part of the capital costs would be the instrumentation that would not go forward to industrial sized builds isn’t known nor the other special one off costs that come from a first build.

What is illustrated is that in Japan at least, the sense that CO2 can be recycled back into the petrochemical stream is a viable idea that merits engineering and construction investments. It’s also noteworthy that they understand the importance of providing a source of hydrogen to maximize the product yield. The 82% CO2 used number is just outstanding. This is a much better concept than the US effort to somehow sequester and bury CO2. A few months ago the U.S. dropped a coal plant sequestration effort as it was simply too expensive. It is much smarter to make use of the value in the waste CO2 than try to make another kind of “landfill” for CO2. CO2 actually has value, as any green plant can tell you, and when processed up to a value added product it can stop being a topic of such contention.

Cornell Study Shows Shale Gas Has Much Larger Greenhouse Gas Emissions Than Coal and Oil

By Nathanael Baker on April 12, 2011



A forthcoming study [pdf] from Cornell University may dash the growing reputation natural gas has acquired as the "clean" burning fossil fuel.

According to research conducted by Robert Howarth, Renee Santoro, and Anthony Ingraffea, greenhouse gas emissions produced by natural gas derived from unconventional sources, primarily hydraulic fracturing, are significantly higher than that of conventional gas, coal, and oil.


Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, is a significant component of natural gas. The authors estimate that between 30% and 200% more methane is emitted from shale gas produced from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, wells. Hydraulic fracturing requires injecting pressurized water into rock formations to crack them open and harvest the gas encased within them. The majority of the methane escapes in the water as it flows back out, and then later, when the rock is further drilled open to extract the gas reserves.

Howarth and his team state the greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas is substantially greater than conventional gas and oil, and coal, especially when viewed over a 20-year time period. "Compared to coal, the footprint of shale gas is at least 20% greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon and is comparable when compared over 100 years."

With the United States sitting on the largest known reserve of shale gas, the energy source has quickly won a host of powerful supporters. Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens has called natural gas the only energy source which can reduce emissions while supplying an answer to the country's quest for energy independence.

Pickens has revamped his Pickens' Plan -- a blueprint to transition America from foreign fossil fuels to clean energy sources -- so that it almost exclusively focuses on natural gas development. Currently he is pressing American lawmakers to pass the NAT GAS Act which would provide federal incentives for natural gas, while failing to fund other alternative fuels. Last week the NAT GAS Act was introduced in Congress.

Pickens states the President is supportive of this bill, and he may very well be right. President Obama has insisted it is time for America to eliminate its dependence on foreign oil. Although the President concedes it will take a myriad of energy sources to provide the nation with energy independence, natural gas appears to be the most tantalizing at the moment.

When he recently unveiled his own blueprint for energy independence the President placed particular emphasis on natural gas: "Recent innovations have given us the opportunity to tap large reserves -- perhaps a century's worth -- in the shale under our feet. The potential here is enormous."

The energy potential may be enormous, but likewise so are the environmental liabilities. The Cornell study, which will be published this month in the peer-reviewed journal Climatic Change, asserts that life-cycle emissions produced by hydraulic fracturing have not thoroughly been examined. Even more, Congressmen as well as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assert other environmental hazards such as dealing with the toxic flow-back water still need to be addressed. Multiple communities have reported drinking water contamination as a result of the toxic waste being injected into nearby water streams.

A recent New York Times investigative report show the politics around regulating hydraulic fracturing have existed since the Reagan administration. The EPA is currently conducting a study of the environmental impacts posed by fracking, but nevertheless, this latest study will likely add more fuel to the controversy surrounding one of the most popular new energy sources in the world.

Image credit: COTO Report