Physical characterization of Palm Fatty Acid Distillate (PFAD) blends as biofuel

Palm oil has been accepted to be used as fuel with the introduction of petroleum diesel and Palm Methyl Ester (PME) in 2014. The high cost is the major drawback of PME. Not only PME is derived from an expensive low Free Fatty Acid (FFA) feedstock, the cost to convert FFA to PME through the process of trans esterification and purification of palm oil fatty acid is also expensive. Alternative feedstock of FFA is palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD). PFAD is a by-product of crude palm oil (CPO) refining. It is inedible and a low price palm oil product making it attractive as a feedstock for biofuel. The high viscosity of PFAD can be reduced by blending it with diesel fuel. Five blends of PFAD and diesel blends with 2%, 4%, 6%, 8% and 10% volumetric ratio were produced in this study. The physical properties of the blends such as density, viscosity, surface tension and flash point were determined and the results were compared to the Malaysian Standard for Diesel Fuel (MS123:2014). The results show that all properties of the blends are within the acceptable value for diesel fuel

Impact resistance study on rigid polyurethane foam

Polyurethane foam was synthesizes generally using isocyanate and polyol that already mix with the surfactant or catalyst as to aid polymer processing and modify properties of the polymer. Polyurethane can be divided to two types which are flexible foam and rigid foam. Usually, the flexible foam will be used in furniture industry to produce soft furniture cushioning and bedding. Rigid foam generally used for composite structured component and insulation. Main focus of this research is to produce a prediction assessment against penetration resistance of rigid polyurethane foam under specific dynamic load. Evaluation is by using analytical prediction method to evaluate the depth of penetration and energy absorption. The fabricated rigid polyurethane foam was undergoing compression test to obtain its mechanical properties and impact test to verify the prediction model with two significant measurements concerned, impact energy and the penetration depth leave by impactor. The impact speed was set up at 1.5 m/s, 1.7 m/s and 2 m/s. Results of experiment shows variations for depth of penetration and energy absorption to the predicted value from the analytical model. This variation is caused by the specimen’s rigidity disordered during the specimen producing process