Determination of Water Saturation in Oil Reservoirs Using the Simandoux Method

Authors

  • Christin Patricia, ArindaRistawati, RiniSetiati*

Abstract

Palm oil industry in Indonesia is a strategic agro-based industry that has a
potential to increase foreign exchanging indicated by the increasing of crude palm oil (CPO)
production as much as 33,229,381 ha/year. Factors that can affect the CPO quality are free
fatty acids (FFA) and water contents. Based on the Indonesia National Standard, the CPO
quality should fulfill the requirement of FFA content under 5% (w/w) and water content
under 0.5% (w/w). Free fatty acids and water contents beyond the standard limit will
decrease the CPO quality. The increasing content of FFA is affected by several factors such
as incorrect harvest time, time length of fresh fruit bunches collection in the plantation,
transportation time of fresh fruit bunches to the palm oil mill, and a very long storage time in
the mill. This research objective is to know the effects of storage time variation of fresh fruit
bunches, those are 0 (control), 1, 2, and 3 days, on FFA and water contents in CPO
production. FFA content was analyzed using acid-base titration method, whereas water
content was analyzed using gravimetric method. Both methods refer to SNI 01-2901-2006.
The results showed that FFA content was increase with the increasing storage time of fresh
fruits bunches, those are 4.888% (control), 5.135%, 5.380%, and 5.864% respectively. The
similar tendency was showed on the water content, those are 0.028% (control), 0.038%,
0.043%, and 0.121% respectively. The longer the storage time for FFB, the FFA in CPO will
increase, and the longer the storage time for FFB, the water content in CPO increases

Published

2020-06-30

Issue

Section

Articles