(from left) Mohamad Ikbal Pangestu, Tiara Mahendra Kurniawati, Hafildatur Rosyidah, Ulfa Miki Fitriana, and Ahnaf

ITS Campus, ITS News – Transforming mango peels extract into an environmentally friendly SS-304 metal corrosion inhibitor agent, the student’s team of Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) scored another achievement. The team, named Platinum, won a bronze medal at the international scale event, World Invention and Technology Expo (WINTEX): Indonesia Inventors Day (IID) 2020 in the International STEM-based Innovation Competition category, was announced online, Sunday (29/11).

The research titled Mango Skin Extract as a Corrosion Inhibitor of SS304 Metal was initiated by a team from the Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science and Data Analytics ITS, and led by Ahnaf. The four members are Tiara Mahendra Kurniawati, Ulfa Miki Fitriana, Hafildatur Rosyidah, and Mohamad Ikbal Pangestu.

One of the Platinum Team member, Mohamad Ikbal Pangestu, explained that the idea of creating an inhibitor through mango peel extract arose after the Platinum Team saw the facts, where the mango peel was not processed and ended up as organic waste. Platinum Team saw this as an opportunity to make substances that could slow down the corrosion rate. “We use mango peels because mango peels are often thrown away and become organic waste,” said Ikbal.

The reason why Platinum Team chose mango peels was that they contained flavonoid compounds. Flavonoid is bioactive compounds found in food ingredients derived from plants, and one of the most common sources of flavonoids is mango peel.

The processing of mango peels extracts done by Tim Platinum of ITS

Based on Ikbal’s statement, flavonoids are a type of antioxidant and can reduce the rate of corrosion. “With the presence of these antioxidants, corrosion can be resisted, so t the mango peel can be an inhibitor for the corrosion rate,” said the student who also serves as public relations in the Bayucaraka ITS Robot Team.

The 20-year-old student also explained the difficulties that have been faced by the Platinum Team during the WINTEX competition. According to him, the biggest challenge for the team is related to team communication and coordination because the competition is held online. “The biggest challenge for us during this competition is communication and coordination between teams which must be completely done online,” said Ikbal.

Despite these obstacles, Ikbal informed that experiments and data processing related to mango peel extract had been done before the pandemic. “Actually, we had intended to participate in a similar competition offline, namely the Shanghai Expo,” he explained.

The research, which was carried out as a topic in the 2018 Student Creativity Program-Research (PKM-P) and managed to get funding. This topic also won a gold medal at an international event named Korea International Women’s Invention Exposition (KIWIE) 2020

Ikbal hopes that the innovation related to inhibitor substances from mango peel extract created by his team can provide benefits to society, especially for corrosive inhibitors of metals. (jev/man/ITS Public Relations)

The metal used for the corrosion rate testing done by Tim Platinum of ITS