Toto Iswanto, PMDSU scholarship student when presenting his dissertation in open session of his doctorate promotion

ITS Campus, ITS News – Indonesia is currently aggressively developing New Renewable Energy (EBT) to replace the fossil energy sources that will someday run out. Supporting this steps, doctoral student (S3) of Chemical Engineering Department of Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS), Toto Iswanto, succeeded in explaining how to convert the coffee bean skin waste into more optimal biogas in the open session of the doctorate promotion at the Oedjoe Djoeriaman Hall on Monday (19/8).

Toto explained, when the coffee is processed, it will always produce coffee bean skin waste which can cause serious problems to the surrounding environment if not utilized properly. Seeing the opportunity, Toto succeeded to create biogas from the waste by utilizing certain micro-organisms.

In the research for the doctoral dissertation, the initial treatment was carried out by utilizing the feces of Asian palm civet animals. The treatment can reduce the lignin content by 35.25 percent and inhibitors (caffeine, tannins, and free phenols) by more than 95 percent.

Toto Iswanto along with the session leaders, examiners, promoters, and counselors after undergoing an open session of doctorate promotion

Also, there are other alternatives by providing initial treatment to the coffee bean skin by giving Alkaline Hydrogen Peroxide (AHP) followed by using cow rumen liquid. The liquid is also one of the wastes that come from the slaughterhouses. “So we process waste (coffee bean skin) using waste (cow rumen liquid) and produce useful biogas,” said the man born 30 April 1992.

This student who completed the doctorate program for three years also mentioned that the amount of biogas produced using the method in his research could produce 50 times more volume. Besides that, the biogas produced can be a promising energy source in the future.

On the other hand, this ITS Chemical Engineering graduate alumni himself is one of the students who received a scholarship from the Masters to Doctoral Education Program for Superior Bachelor (PMDSU) from the Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education (Kemenristekdikti). Besides that, he has also been a researcher at Indonesia Culture Collection (InaCC) and Biotechnology Research Center, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI)-Biology, Cibinong. (sof/gayatri/ITS Public Relation)

Toto Iswanto along with the session leaders, examiners, promoters, and counselors after undergoing an open session of doctorate promotion